Aurora
by Genesis1
Summary: A sequel to Enemy Without... It's 15 years later and history has a way of repeating itself.....
1. Aurora Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own them

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Joss Whedon and his band of merry torturers do. They just run around in my head and I write down what they do.

Distribution: Ask if you like it. 

Rating: G, but I haven't started in on the violence yet

Spoilers: Only some references to Buffy & Angel pre-2001. 

Summary: This is a sequel to Enemy Without.It's 15 years later and history has a tendency to repeat itself….

Now sit back and enjoy… I hope

** ****AURORA ** PROLOGUE

Her parents were fighting.Again.

"I can't believe you want to let her go!You know the dangers out there…"

The fight was about her.Again.They always fought about her.But even their fights were cryptic.

"Hell, you were the danger out there!And you want to let her go unprotected?!"

What was it about her father that her mother just couldn't let go?

"Goddammit!Will you stop throwing that at me?!I made amends, remember?If they could forgive me and let it go, why can't you?!"

Who was the mysterious "they" her parents always talked about?And for what did her father make amends for?

Aurora swallowed hard at the knot forming in her young throat.The sorrow-filled tears burned behind her eyes.She wanted so badly to go to America with the rest of her class.The exchange project was only for a year.It's not like she was going away forever.

And she needed to be away from her parents and their damned secrets.She knew they hadn't always lived in Australia, but when she tried to ask about before, they changed the subject.She'd only been able to find one lone picture of her mother when she was a girl about her, Aurora's, age.She'd asked her mother who the pretty redheaded girl or the cute boy was.Her mother had gotten this nostalgic look on her face and said that they were her best friends.Nothing more.And after that the picture disappeared too.Even searches on the Network couldn't shed light on her family's past.

It was like they started to exist the minute they stepped foot on Australian soil.Aurora had even entertained the thought for a while that her parents might be spies or terrorists.That would at least explain their lacking backgrounds.

Why were they so bent on keeping her locked away from the world?They've made their secret world her prison, and it's slowly driving her crazy.Don't they realize that?

A sob ripped through her, and Aurora buried her head in her pillow, trying to muffle the sounds of her misery.

She registered silence outside her door.'Oh God,' she thought.'Don't let them hit each other.'

"Aurora?"Her father's voice floated to her.How did he hear her crying over her mother's screaming voice?

"Honey, what's wrong?"Her mother's hands gently pulling her out of her pillows, stroking her hair and face with worry in her eyes.

"It's my fault!"Aurora couldn't stop the words from blurting out and she just cried harder."It's my fault you guys are fighting."

Her parents sandwiched her between them, encircling her in their protective arms."Aurora," her mother soothed."No, don't ever think that."

"We love you more than anything," her father exclaimed, kissing her hair.

"But if I didn't ask to go on the exchange, you wouldn't have been fighting.It's my fault.I'm sorry.I don't have to go."Aurora's misery grew as her heart shrank.

Silence fell around her.They were having one of their silent conversations, Aurora knew.How long do you have to know someone before you don't even need to speak to talk?

"You really want to go, don't you?" her mother asked, lifting Aurora's face to meet her eyes.Aurora nodded miserably, tears still coursing down her cheeks.

"She's have to call everyday.And keep her grades up," her mother said to her father over Aurora's shoulder.Aurora's heart was taking flight.

"You mean it?" she asked excitedly, wanting to hope.

"And no boys!" her father amended."You're still too young to date."

"Yes, Daddy!Yes, Mommy!" Aurora agreed happily, pulling her parents to her for a bracing hug.She didn't even notice their slight grunts of pain.Aurora sometimes forgot how strong she was.

**************** 

Los Angeles-Six months later 

_ _

"Aurora Liam?"

"Yes?"

"You have to come with me.Now.It is your destiny."

"What?Who are you?I know how to defend myself."

"You are the Chosen One.To every generation one girl is born who is destined to battle the demons, vampires and the forces of darkness.You are that girl.You are the Slayer.You must come with me now."

"Are you insane?Vampires don't exist.Now leave me alone."

"Please.Come with me, and discover your destiny for yourself.I won't harm you."

"Well, okay, I'll go.But only to prove that you're psycho.Just remember that I know how to break your arm in five places with just one move.My dad taught me, and he's some Special Forces type guy."

**************** 

"I'm worried about Aurora.She doesn't call anymore.Her grades are suffering.Do you think this exchange program's gotten to much for her?"

"She'll be okay.She's her mother's daughter after all."

"You're worried too."

"Yes.What could be wrong?Maybe we should go over there for a visit?"

"No, it's only a few more weeks until the school closes for summer.We should give her till then.Maybe she'll tell us on her own what's wrong."

"You hate that idea as much as I do, but you're right.Just a few more weeks until the International Parents Convention.We'll give her until then."

"I miss my baby.Do you think we did the right thing in letting her go?"

"I hope we did.I miss her too."

**************** 

Australia – one week before summer vacation and the International Parents Convention

_ _

"She's been arrested!My baby's in jail!"

"What are you talking about?Calm down, and tell me what's wrong with Aurora."

"Her principle called.Aurora's been arrested for murder!She was on a field trip with her class.Apparently, she got separated from the group.People heard a struggle and they found her over a dead body.It must have been self-defense.Oh God, you don't think someone attacked her to get to us, do you?"

"Get your things.We're going to Los Angeles."

"I can't loose my baby.What are we going to do, Angel?"

"It's going to be okay, Buffy.We'll get to the bottom of this."

END OF PROLOGUE


	2. Aurora Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1 ****

CHAPTER 1

Aurora was frantic. How could this be happening? She played the last 24 hours over in her mind, trying to find something… anything that could get her out of this mess.

Her History class had gone to an archeological dig for a field trip. She didn't much like History or the History teacher, but it was a field trip and anything to get Aurora out of that class and still give her credit was a-okay with her.

She was actually enjoying herself. The diggers had unearthed some ancient slab with writings on it and everyone was arguing over when it was buried. The stone itself was ancient, they all agreed, but the dirt wasn't. 

"Nate would just love this," Aurora had thought with a smile.

She had felt eyes on her, and looking around into the surrounding brush, saw a demon stalking her in the shadows. It was the same one that had been tracking her for the last week. Nate, her Watcher, hadn't been able to find out why this demon of unknown origin was stalking the Slayer yet, which made Aurora that more cautious of it. But the fact that it kept hiding just out of sight meant that Aurora hadn't been able to give a detailed description of said demon, making Nate's job nearly impossible.

So she'd decided to do the only logical thing. Aurora went after the demon. Unfortunately Mr Richards, her History teacher and general thorn in her side, saw her ducking into the brush and had decided to follow her. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to make her life miserable and catching her in a suspension-worthy situation was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

The teacher had walked in on her fighting off her demon-stalker. The demon had leapt at the uninvited guest, broke his neck in quick order and tossed the lifeless Mr Richards into the Slayer's arms. By the time Aurora got the dead body off her, the demon was gone. 

Then the scream had echoed over the clearing. A young woman, one of the digging crew, had been standing at the edge of the clearing, her face stark white. Her scream had brought the rest of the digging crew and the visiting students, which in turn brought the police with their hand cuffs and their Miranda rights.

Aurora had to spend the night in jail, because her exchange family hadn't been able to pull the bail money together fast enough. Or maybe because they believed she actually did kill her teacher. This wasn't the first time in the last few months that Aurora had gotten into trouble for fighting.

The police kept asking questions she couldn't answer, and her court-appointed lawyer didn't help matters much. At least he did manage to get her bail, but then the Thompsons' told her they couldn't get her out before the next day, because the check wouldn't clear until then.

So now Aurora paced her cell, waiting for morning – and freedom – to come. Never before had she missed her parents like she did right now.

"Oh God!" she cried out. "My parents! What will I tell _them_?" Aurora's heart sank into her shoes. 

****************

3am the next morning, as nightmares jarred Aurora from her restless sleep, Buffy Anne Summers, now Liam, and her husband, Angel, landed their Lear Jet at LAX Airport.

"I'm so worried, Angel," Buffy said, tears of concern close to the surface. "She's all alone in that jail."

Angel took his wife in his arms, trying his best to comfort her when all he wanted to do was rip those barred doors off his daughter's cell and free her. "I know, baby. Aurora will be fine. I promise. Come on, let's go. We should get some sleep before the sun rises."

Buffy let her husband lead her to their waiting car. The driver kept his eyes low in respect for the traumatized parents. 

Buffy and Angel sat in silence, watching the quiet city flash by them. It's amazing how little Los Angeles had changed in the last 15 years.

Buffy's thoughts were pulled back to the day she left. Angel had defeated Angelus and had been reborn human. They had left that monument to their pain and loss for the bright future ahead that day. 

She had called Giles from the airport, telling him that both she and Angel were alive and well and leaving together.

"After all these years of loneliness, of denying ourselves, we finally have our chance," she had pleaded for her Watcher's understanding. "We have a chance to be together and be happy."

Giles had said he understood and had wished her well. 

"I will be back," Buffy had promised the day she had taken Angel's strong, warm hand, had followed him into the sun and never looked back. 

They had traveled the world. He showed her his home in Ireland and they were married there on a clear sunny day. Angel had given her the claddaugh ring she never dared wear for fear that the pain and loneliness become too much. That night, their wedding night, Aurora was conceived. 

They had traveled over the entire Europe, but the memories of past lives always caught up with them. So they kept moving until they had found the shores of Australia. There they found peace like they've never known before. Here, no-one had ever cared about The Scourge of Europe or the Slayer. They found anonymity. So they stayed.

Angel bought his beautiful wife and baby girl a fabulous house. Buffy had been very surprised to find out that her husband was actually filthy stinking rich. Centuries of collecting art and wise investments had made him a very wealthy man, but Angel had always felt that to indulge in his material gain would lessen his suffering. The investments growing in their international bank accounts gave the couple the freedom to be together without worry about where their next meal would be coming from.

But they were still Warriors for the Powers. And the demons still found them. Aurora was getting bigger and asking questions they didn't want to answer yet. So Liam Corp, a very successful private security and investigation firm was born. Buffy and Angel ran it together, and the business gave them the cover to hide all their secrets from the world at large and from their daughter, whom they felt wasn't ready yet to know the truth about her parents.

They had had no contact with their friends and family in the United States at all. They had rewritten their public past so that no connection could ever be made between Mr and Mrs Liam and the Slayer and the Vampire with a Soul. 

Now Buffy was back home, back in the country of her birth and the city of her rebirth. It took her 15 years to keep her promise, but she was finally back. And all she wanted to do was leave, to just pull her family close to her and leave before this city, this country could ruin her life again.

8am was slow to come to the restless couple. Buffy found Angel in the training room, kicking the living hell out of a punching bag. He sensed her presence in the doorway, watching him vent his frustration and anger on the inanimate object.

"I keep wishing this is the bastard to blame for Aurora's trouble," he growled, out of breath. Sweat glistened on his naked, rigid back. He landed a last punch into the bag, ripping it out of the ceiling and turned into his wife's waiting arms.

"I know," she said softly, stroking the tension from his shoulders and back. "We'll find him. He'll pay for messing with our family. I promise."

"What time is it?" Angel asked, stepping back.

"Time to go get our daughter," Buffy answered, handing her husband a towel. 

****************

"Mom! Dad!" Aurora launched herself at her parents standing in the waiting area. The policeman escorting her out tried in vain to restrain her, but he was no match for her strength.

"Aurora!" her parents answered, gathering their daughter into their open arms.

The young policeman stepped up and grabbed Aurora's shoulder. "No touching!" he ordered.

A hand clamped down on his wrist, twisting. He looked up into the furious black eyes of the girl's father. 

"Touch my daughter again," Angel growled menacingly. "And you will have to pray your buddies can arrest me before I beat you to death with the bloody stump of your arm."

Never before had he seen such fury. The policeman gulped and backed off, nursing his wrist. 'It's broken,' he thought incredulously. 'He broke it with one hand.' Wisely he decided to not make an issue out of it. 'Better for my health, I think, to just let them have their reunion. She's out in any case.'

"I didn't do it," Aurora cried into her mother's arms. "I swear, I didn't do it." Tears cascaded from her dark chocolate eyes, begging her mother to believe.

"I know," Buffy assured her daughter, touching her face to wipe away the tears clinging on her cheeks. "We'll fix this, Aurora. I promise." She pulled the sobbing girl into her arms for a fierce hug. "Mommy's here now."

A bald little man crawled up to the reunited family. "Excuse me," he coughed. "Mr and Mrs Liam?" Angel and Buffy turned their attention to the little man trying to introduce himself.

"This is my lawyer, Mr Crocker," Aurora said bitterly. What she wanted to say was 'This is the idiot that had me sleep in a jail cell for the night.', but she thought better of it.

Her father didn't share his daughter's thought, though. "My daughter slept in a jail cell last night!" Angel spat, grabbing the nervous little man by his wrinkled coat lapels. "You let my baby sleep in a jail with murderers and thieves and thugs!"

"Angel," Buffy warned, not wanting her husband to be locked up too. Angel breathed in deeply and let the blanched lawyer go. He may be human now, but he still possessed the ability to put the fear of death into men with just a glance.

"I'm sorry," Crocker squeaked, battling desperately not to wet himself. "The bail money. We couldn't raise the bail money in time. And the evidence against your daughter…"

Angel's face darkened. His hands itched to ring this little man's neck. "I suggest you stop talking now, Mr Crocker," Buffy interrupted, her own voice clipped with barely controlled anger. "Come on, Aurora. We're leaving."

Angel turned his back on the frightened lawyer. "Have my daughter's files delivered to this address," he called over his shoulder, tossing a card with their Los Angeles home address to the floor. "Your services are no longer needed."

The District Attorney, who'd come to see off the Liam girl and maybe intimidate her into confessing, groaned from his hiding place behind a supporting pillar. 

"Aurora Liam is Angel's kid?" Lindsey MacDonald couldn't believe his bad luck. His first case as the new DA for LA County and it had to be Angel's daughter. He groaned again and dragged himself back to his office.

Aurora felt miserable, but with her parents protectively holding her at least it was a happy miserable. "What about the Thompsons'?" she asked, noticing that her exchange family was nowhere to be seen.

"We called them this morning," Buffy answered as she followed Aurora into the waiting car. "They understood that we wanted to pick you up and take you home. We can go over there later to get your things."

Aurora nodded. She was relieved she didn't have to deal with the Thompsons' as well today. But she should call Nate and let him know where she was, Aurora reminded herself. Suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. Aurora stiffened, scanning the world outside the car windows for the source of her unease.

"Aurora? What's wrong?" Buffy asked the tense girl.

Aurora shook her head, mumbling, "Nothing, Mom." 

She didn't notice her father's tense and watchful expression as he joined them in the back of the departing limo, but Buffy did. That look meant one thing. Evil, and it was close by. The older Slayer sighed heavily. 'Welcome home,' she thought bitterly.


	3. Aurora Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Aurora sank into the plush couch in the living room of the newest Liam mansion in their collection.How long had her family owned this house, she wondered as she stared at the finery spread across the room.

"Aurora," Angel said, sitting down next to his daughter.He looked deep into her eyes.They were the same velvet brown as his.His daughter was radiant, he realized and not for the first time.She was the spitting image of her mother at 15, with the same golden blonde hair and the same easy smile.And Angel wanted to protect that smile and soulful glance from hurt with his entire being."You have to tell us what happened." 

Aurora sighed and dropped her gaze to the carpet.If she was going to have to lie to her father, she couldn't look him in the eye."We were on a field trip to this archeological dig where they found this weird rock thing.I thought I heard something in the bushes and decided to check it out.I was curious.Mr Richards, my History teacher, saw me go and followed me, I guess."She paused.She desperately wanted to tell her father the truth, to confide in him the terror and confusion she's been experiencing the last 6 months, but she feared her father's unbelieving glare more.She didn't think she could survive it if her father called her delusional.

Aurora breathed out slowly and continued, "The guy jumped him from behind.He just snapped poor Mr Richards' neck like it was nothing.Then he ran away, leaving the body with me.I know how this sounds, but…"She couldn't finish the sentence.The lie twisted in her throat, blocking her voice.

Angel lifted his glance to his wife, not believing the words coming from his daughter's mouth and wanting to confirm that Buffy didn't either.Why was she lying to us, Angel's troubled eyes asked Buffy, who could only shrug in confusion.

"You didn't see his face?" Buffy asked Aurora.

Aurora's eyes were still glued to the toes of her shoes when she answered almost inaudibly, "No."

"Aurora," Buffy began, but Aurora interrupted what she knew her mother was going to say.

"Please, Mom, I'm so tired," she said, jumping up from the couch and almost running to the sanctity of her room at the top of the stairs."Can we talk about this later?I just want to get some sleep."

She disappeared before either of her parents could say anything to stop her.

"What was that?" Angel asked aloud, taking his wife's cold hand.

Buffy looked at the empty stairs her daughter had vacated an instant before."I have no idea," she answered."But I want to find out.Let's go out there.See if we can't find something to shed some light on why our daughter feels the need to lie to us."

Angel nodded and grabbed his coat, the location of the crime scene tucked away in his pocket.The case files had arrived not long ago and the address was the first thing he found.

"Aurora!", he called up the stairs."Your mother and I are going out.We'll try to be back soon.Don't leave the house."

"Okay, Dad!" Aurora's muffled answer drifted down to them.

Aurora heard the front door slam."Sorry, Nate," she spoke into the receiver of her phone."What did you say?"

"It's called a Raz'lah demon," Greg Nathaniel, High School Librarian and Watcher of the Vampire Slayer, repeated."I was able to identify it from your description."

"So what does it want with me?" the young Slayer asked.

"I don't know," her Watcher said.His frustration was evident as his British accent thickened."What did you tell your parents?"

It was Aurora's turn to sound frustrated when she answered, "Exactly what I told the police.And I hated doing it!Why can't I tell them?They are going to try and find the "guy" and clear my name.If this demon hurts them because of my lie, I'll never be able to forgive myself."

"I know you want to tell them the truth, but telling them would endanger them even more.You know this, Aurora."

"Yes, I know," she sighed.She gave her Watcher her address and phone number at the mansion, promising to check in later.

With the phone back in its cradle, Aurora curled up on her bed and cried herself to sleep.

***************

Buffy and Angel drove out of the city to the clearing where the dig and the crime scene were located.The silence in the car was deafening as their thoughts competed for dominance in the atmosphere surrounding the couple.

"I think you should talk to the people at the dig," Buffy said, breaking the silence."I'll check out the clearing where the body was found."

Angel nodded, still deep in thought."Do you think she's protecting anyone?" he asked, voicing the question mulling around in his head."Do you think this "guy" could be a boyfriend or something?"

Buffy sighed, curling up under Angel's strong arm."I don't know, but I get the feeling there's more to this than meets the eye.Aurora got very agitated when we left the police station today.It was almost like she sensed something watching us.I know you sensed it.I could see it in your eye.Do you think that's possible?"

Angel thought on his wife's question."Maybe.She's never been exactly like other kids.Maybe she's more sensitive to the world of shadows because she's the daughter of a Slayer and a vampire."

"You did it again," Buffy commented.

"What?"

"You called yourself a vampire.Even after all these years of breathing and eating and walking in the sun.Do you miss it?"

Angel's brow furrowed.A nostalgic smile pulled at his sensual mouth."No, I don't miss it.But when you spend more than two and a half centuries as one, it's hard to start calling yourself something else.And I don't know if I want to stop calling myself a vampire.You fell in love with a vampire, didn't you?"He stole a kiss from his wife's smiling lips.

"I fell in love with you," Buffy corrected, returning her husband's kiss."You just happened to be a vampire at the time."

"We're here," Angel said, slowing the car to pull into the makeshift parking area.

The husband-and-wife team split up, heading off into different directions.

Angel stopped a young man and asked, "Where can I find Lindy Rothchild?"

The young man pointed over to the main tent."She's in there, dude."

Angel nodded his thanks and made his way to the big white tent off to the side of the digging area.He swept back the tent flap and entered the cool interior."I'm looking for Lindy Rothchild," he asked the scattered people glancing at him curiously.

"What do you want with Lindy?" a deep voice spoke up next to Angel."Are you with the police, because she already gave a statement."

"I'm not with the police," Angel answered, facing the owner of the voice.It was an older man with grey hair and many years of hard work in the sun carved into his face."I'm a private investigator."He handed his host his card and extended his other hand in greeting."I'm Angel.Angel Liam.The girl they arrested is my daughter."

"Doctor Wolff.Samuel Wolff."The man accepted Angel's hand."I'm sorry to hear about your child, Mr Liam, but I don't see what Lindy can do for you."

"I just want her to tell me what she told the police.I don't mean her any harm.I'm just looking for the truth," Angel answered honestly.

"I'll talk to him, Sam."The young feminine voice belonged to a small dark-haired woman with shocking green eyes.She had a spot of dust on her nose, which made her look younger than her actual 30 years.Lindy Rothchild raised her hand to Angel, walking up to him to greet him."I'm Lindy Rothchild."

"Angel Liam," Angel introduced himself.Her hand was cold, but strong.

"As I told the police, I heard a noise inside the brush.I thought it was some reporter, or maybe a rival trying to steal a peek at our work, but when I stepped into the clearing…"Lindy shuddered at the memory."For what it's worth, I don't think she did it.That man was broken in two.No normal girl her size could do that."

Angel stiffened, but kept his face expressionless."Can you tell me exactly what you saw?The position of the body, any markings on the ground that could have indicated a struggle, anything you can think of.Please, it's important."

Lindy nodded, leading Angel past the flap that separated her work space from the rest of the tent.

The dark-haired archeologist was talking, recreating the scene she witnessed for the tall man following her, but Angel wasn't listening.His attention was locked on the giant stone filling up Lindy's small work space.The blood rushed from his head, making him feel dizzy.He had to remind himself to breathe or risk passing out.

"Acathla."The word escaped Angel's mouth on the expelled breath.

"And then I screamed…. What?"Lindy focused on her visitor, pulling herself out of her memories.She frowned confused at the vision that greeted her.'He looks like he's just seen a ghost,' she thought, seeing all the color had leeched out of his face.

"What did you say?" she asked."Do you know what this is?"

"Have you opened it yet?" Angel asked, dreading the answer.

Shock registered on the archeologist's face."How did you know…?No, we haven't opened it yet."

"Good."Angel turned on his heel and pushed past the tent flap."You shouldn't open it."

Lindy followed the exiting man, crying after him, "Wait!What is this?You have to tell me!"

Angel ignored the bewildered woman, marching to the clearing to find his wife.He broke through the brush to find Buffy scratching at something in the dirt.

She looked up at her husband, excited."Come look at this.I think I found something."

"Buffy, we have a problem."

Buffy frowned.She knew that tone of voice.That was Angel's "The End is Nigh" voice."What's up?"

"I think Aurora did find a demon here, but I don't think it was here for her," Angel answered.

"Yeah, see?I found these claw marks.And half this plant is dead.It had blood on it, and I'm assuming not human.Human blood don't kill the foliage.We just find the species belonging to the blood and we got our demon.Then we go kill it."Buffy was excited again.This could actually turn out to be easy.

Angel threw cold water on his wife's excitement."It was after Acathla.The dig uncovered his stone prison.They're trying to decipher it now."

Buffy blanched.Her mouth went dry; she had trouble speaking."Oh God," she said, but it came out as a whisper.Memories of years past and the battle they fought over the demon flooded through her, and for an instant her heart broke again."How?How can this be?Has it been opened?"

Angel put a supporting arm around his wife."No, it's still sealed.Why wasn't it destroyed?"Anger laced Angel's words.

"Giles said he would take care of it," Buffy snapped at the accusation."And frankly, I didn't ask.I didn't want anything more to do with that thing after….I was trying very hard not to loose it."Buffy let herself relax into Angel's strong chest."But only your blood could awaken Acathla.So we're okay, right?"

The unbidden image of their daughter, beautiful and powerful like her father, passed between the couple, icing over their hearts.

"Aurora," they said simultaneously and raced for their car.


	4. Aurora Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 ****

CHAPTER 3

Buffy snapped her cellphone shut with an irritated growl.

"What did Giles say?" Angel asked, already knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

Buffy took a calming breath that didn't do much good in calming her. "Giles said the Council sent a team to take care of it. He never knew what they did with Acathla. The Council felt it wouldn't be safe for him to know, because he had divulged the necessary information needed to awaken Acathla to you." 

Angel's expression darkened; his fury matching Buffy's.

"I swear if one hair on my daughter's head is harmed because of _their_ bloody lame-ass incompetence, I will wipe the entire Watcher's Council off the face of this planet," Buffy growled. 

"We won't let that happen, Love," Angel said, stealing a glance at his wife's set face. "They had better pray nothing happens."

A loaded silence fell over the car as Angel maneuvered the car through evening LA traffic, the sun slowly sinking beneath the horizon.

*************** 

Aurora sighed and sank back into her boyfriend's arms. His chest was hard and strong against her back, his lips nuzzling at her ear soft and warm.

"I wish you could stay, but my folks will be home soon," Aurora sighed, shivering with pleasure at the attentions being paid to her neck. 

"Maybe I should meet them."

Aurora hesitated and shook her head. "Not yet. I've given them enough to worry about without adding any more ….. umm….. unexpected elements to the mix." She felt her boyfriend laugh against her and smiled.

"Are you going out tonight?"

"I should. Nate wants me to," Aurora sighed. She didn't want to think of patrolling right now.

"I'll go with you if you like. Keep the monsters away."

Another smile softened the worry lines creasing Aurora's young face. "I'd like that," she whispered, turning to capture the soft mouth close to her cheek with her own.

The couple didn't hear the front door open. They didn't hear the footsteps climbing the stairs. They didn't hear the door unlatch and creak open. They didn't hear anything until…

"Get your hands off my daughter!" Aurora's mother stormed into the room, knocking Aurora aside and with lightning quick reflexes pinned the unknown visitor to the wall, her hand crushing down on his throat.

Aurora clambered to her feet, shouting, "Mom, no!"

"Ease up on the throat, will you, pet?" the choking man forced out past the elder Slayer's unrelenting hand.

Buffy blinked, not believing what her eyes were telling her. "Spike?" she asked incredulously, letting go of her prey.

"Hello, sweetness," the blonde grinned down at Buffy, rubbing his throat. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

Aurora was shaking her head. This made no sense at all. Her boyfriend and her mother knew each other? 

"Spike." All eyes rose to Aurora's father standing in the doorway. 

Even as a human he makes an imposing figure, Spike thought. "Hello, peaches!" he said flippantly to hide the butterflies fluttering in his stomach at seeing his sire again.

"Wait, hold up," Aurora interjected, needing an explanation from her parents. "You know my boyfriend?"

Buffy and Angel exchanged quick glances. They had more important questions to ask, but how to proceed without crushing their daughter in the process was the problem.

"What are you doing with Aurora, Spike?" Angel asked Spike, sounding every inch the Master vampire demanding an answer from his fledgling.

Spike, being typical Spike, went on the offensive. "That's all you have to say to me? After everything that's happened? And then you just left without a word… again… disappearing with your little blonde human. And besides that, it's okay for you to have a Slayer girlfriend, but not for me?"

"Spike!" Buffy and Aurora both cried indignantly, wanting to keep their individual secrets secret.

Angel didn't raise to the bait like Spike hoped he would. 'Still the damned Master, aren't you?', he thought bitterly, cursing his unbeating heart for aching so at the sight of Angel.

"Are you here to awaken Acathla?" Angel asked, getting right to the point. 

Spike frowned, clearly not understanding. This lifted the heavy stone pressing down on Angel's heart. "Acathla? What are you on about, you big poof? Need I remind you I was the one that helped stop that thing from sucking the world into Hell? What would I want with it now? Bloody idiot."

Buffy asked the other question nagging at her. "Are you still chipped, Spike?"

"CHRIST! Yes! Are you happy now? Spike's still just a big fluffy puppy with bad teeth!" the blonde vampire exploded, spinning to face down his Slayer foe. "Tell me, sweetness, do you really think you'd still be breathing if this fucking chip wasn't still in my head?"

Aurora gasped at the vicious threat her boyfriend flung at her mother. "Spike, don't!"

An iron-hard hand gripped the back of the vampire's neck, squeezing. "Be nice, boy. You don't want to outstay your welcome, do you?" Angel growled into Spike's ear.

He's as strong as ever, Spike marveled through the pain shooting down his spine. "Yes, Sire. I'm sorry," he hissed, his teeth clenched to stop the yelp from escaping.

"Daddy, no, you're hurting him." Everybody seemed to have forgotten about the very confused and very angry Aurora, who was watching the events unfold before her. She felt like she came into the movie 3 sequels too late and nobody wanted to share the backstory.

Aurora swallowed the tears threatening to spill from her dark brown eyes and, storming to where Spike was still caught in her father's iron grip, boomed, "ENOUGH!" She shoved the two men apart, sending both Spike and Angel flying into the walls.

"Daddy! Oh God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," she gasped at the sight of Angel lying crumpled against her wall. Buffy rushed to her husband's side, helping him to his feet.

"Oi! What about some sympathy for me? I'm the one with the dislocated shoulder here," Spike whined, not appreciating not having anyone pay attention to his pain.

"Shut up, Spike," Buffy spat.

Spike ground his teeth and slammed his shoulder back into its socket, all the time mumbling to himself, "All quiet for all these years, killing the demons. No problems. None. Bloody Slayer! All her fault. Why didn't I kill her when I had the bloody chance?"

Aurora was anchored in the center of her room, looking absolutely miserable. She couldn't look at her father. She felt too ashamed. And Spike's mumbled words were like daggers through her heart. 'He blames me? He wants me dead?' Aurora wanted to run to her room, bury her face in her pillow and cry, but she couldn't even do that because this _was_ her room. 

The girl sank down onto the floor, sobbing her frustration and sorrow into her hands. Spike rushed to Aurora's side, pulling her to his chest. "Now look what you done, you bloody poof! You made the girl cry," Spike rebuked, his eternal cerulean eyes sparkling with anger.

Aurora shoved Spike away from her. "Get off me, you two-faced shit!" she cried. 

"What? Pet, what did I do?" Spike couldn't understand the young Slayer's sudden animosity.

"What did you do?" Aurora asked amazed. "You just said you wanted me dead!"

Understanding dawned in Spike's eyes. "No, luv, I didn't mean you," he explained hurriedly. "I love you. You're the best thing that's happened in my life."

Aurora's head was spinning again with answers that didn't make any sense to her. "But you said Slayer."

Spike's eyes lifted to meet Buffy's, getting the answer to the question shining in their depths. They never told their kid who they were, he realized. "Oh hell," the vampire breathed, but Aurora didn't quite hear him. She was too busy running the past few minutes over in her mind, seeking answers, or at least new questions to connect with the answers she has.

"Why did you call my dad 'Sire'? He can't be your sire. He's human." Aurora frowned, her dark eyes focussing on the vampire's face, then seeking her father's dark eyes.

"Pet," Spike felt really uncomfortable under the young Slayer's gaze. "I think you need to talk to your folks about this."

Aurora was getting very angry, her misery dried up by the fire burning in her blood. "Talk to me about what? God! I am so sick of everybody's damn secrets!"

"Aurora, honey…" her mother coaxed, trying to calm her.

But Aurora wouldn't be calmed. "No! You think your past is so terrible that it would scar me for life? Please! I survived the worst Hellspawn this place could throw at me, so I think I can survive a few skeletons in the fucking closet!" Her family was shocked into silence by the vehemence with which the girl spoke. 

Aurora spun on her heel, facing a silent Spike. "And you…!" she pointed. "You lied to me. Never once did you mention… even hint… that you knew my parents. Why?! I trusted you with my life. I trusted you with my heart. I thought I knew you. I thought you trusted me, telling me all the terrible things that happened to you at the hands of your Sire, all the terrible things you did. I guess I was wrong."

Spike looked desperately at Angel, wanting to tell the young girl who held his heart everything, but not wanting to hurt her. "Pet, I…" the vampire stammered, begging Angel and Buffy to say something, anything to spare Aurora the truth.

Angel silently nodded to Spike, 'Tell her what you need to.' Spike hated his now-human Sire more in that moment than he ever did while living with the torture-happy Angelus.

Taking a deep unneeded breath, Spike said, "I never lied to you, Aurora. I couldn't be sure at first, but you looked so much like your mother. And your eyes… Then you were called and I knew. But how could I tell you knowing you would probably hate me forever. I couldn't risk losing you. So I ….. edited some stuff."

"Stuff like what, William?" Aurora spoke Spike's name with the same authority and power her father did.

Sighing, he answered, locking eyes on his former Master and enemies. "Stuff like doing everything in my power to kill your mother and father to make them pay for the hell they put me through."

Aurora's head spun. Nothing she was hearing was making any sense whatsoever. When did Spike know her parents well enough to want them dead, and why? He's never been to Australia. And her parents left the country when her mother was only 23. Her father's documents indicated that he should have been 27 then, but both her parents still looked like they were in their late twenties. 'They aged well', Aurora mused, adding another bit of weirdness to the already insane night. 

But that still didn't make the mystery of her boyfriend's animosity towards and familiarity with them any clearer. 

"Why would you…?" The phone's sudden shrill ring cut her off in mid-question. She glared at the ringing instrument, wanting to make it shriek in pain. She yanked the earpiece to her ear, growling a greeting.

It was her Watcher calling her to duty. Nate issued her night's orders in orderly Watcher fashion until he realized that his charge wasn't listening to a word he was saying.

"I can't believe you're not saying anything here! You expect me to do your dirty work for you?" Aurora watched Spike sneer at her parents. "She should be hearing your damned sordid past from _you_, not me!" 

Nate's insistent, clearly annoyed voice pulled her back to the phone she still held in her hand. "Are you listening to me? Aurora!"

"What!" the young Slayer snapped. "I'll be there! God, Nate! I said I'd be there and I'll be there." Aurora glanced up to meet three pairs of eyes on her. "No," she answered the voice on the other end of the phone, every word dripping with sarcasm. "Spike's a bit busy _bonding_ with the parentals tonight. He won't be coming with me."

Spike's face registered the hit Aurora tossed. He turned a pained gaze to Angel; a look Angel knew all to well from when the vampire was still very much enamored with the beautiful, yet disturbed, Drusilla. He just didn't know how to help his Childe without hurting his child.

"Aurora, what are you doing?" Buffy asked the busy Aurora as she gathered her coat and slingbag.

Aurora didn't stop her actions to answer her mother coldly. "What does it look like, Mom? I'm getting my stuff and I'm going out. I don't have time to drag whatever insane past you have with each other out of you."

Angel stepped up to his daughter, but she slid past him to the door. "You can't go out there, Aurora," he said sternly. "It's too…"

"Dangerous?" Aurora chipped in. "Dad, no offense, but you have no idea what goes on out there at night." She paused, her bag dangling from her shoulder. This wasn't the homecoming she'd wanted, but the uglies in the night wasn't going away and she had to go. "I don't know what your deal is, and frankly I don't care anymore. You stay here and play catch-up with each other. You decide what version of your secrets and lies you want to tell me and we'll pretend some more that everything's just hunky-dory when I get back, okay?"

"Aurora," Buffy admonished. She realized her little girl was angry, but if she was being stalked by a demon, Buffy was not planning on letting Aurora leave. "You are not leaving this room tonight, do you understand me?"

Aurora froze, her back stiff with suppressed anger and sorrow. She didn't want to hurt her parents. She loved them and every word out of her mouth tonight has cut them deeply. Not to mention her beloved Spike, her Will. She turned to face her mother, who had a restraining hand around her elbow. She shook the binding hand off her arm, saying, "I'm Aurora, the Vampire Slayer. Deal with it! Now let me go!"

With that Aurora sped from the house into the awaiting darkness, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. She never saw the demon stealing up behind her. The crash of a rock against the back of her head was her first warning that she was not alone, but by then it was too late.

Aurora's demon stalker lifted her unconscious body, letting the Slayer's satchel of weapons slip off her shoulder to the ground. He disappeared into the night with his prize. "Soon, my lovely Slayer," he whispered to the unhearing ears, his evil laughter echoing through the night sky.


	5. Aurora Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 ****

CHAPTER 4

Buffy sank down onto Aurora's bed, her head hanging in motherly worry and despair. "The Powers couldn't be happy with just us," she said. "They had to take my baby too." She leaned into her husband's comforting strength, letting Angel stroke her hair, softly shushing her.

"Let me tell you something about your baby, Slayer," Spike said passionately. "She has been through hell since she's been called. She's a stranger in this country fighting to keep the demons from destroying what little life she has. And she still manages to be happy and beautiful and amazing."

The blonde vampire paused briefly to take a calming breath and continued before either of his ancient history made flesh could interrupt him. "You should have told her. She was always so worried about what you would do when you found out you didn't have a nice normal daughter. Do you know how much anguish you could have saved her by just being straight with the girl?! Aurora had a right to know what world she was born into." 

A perverse sense of pleasure ran through Spike at the sight of the guilty expressions fixing themselves on Buffy and Angel's faces. "And now she's out there, alone and in a state! You of all people should know how dangerous it is when a Slayer goes hunting when her mind's somewhere else. And she's being hunted right this minute by some Raz'lah demon for a reason her useless Watcher can't figure out."

Spike ran his trembling fingers through his platinum hair, and finished his tirade with a final vehement statement. "If I loose her because you two were too bloody spineless to tell the truth, I swear I will make you wish Angelus did kill me."

Angel rose slowly, his thoughts racing. He stepped up to his once-favored Childe and looked him square in the eye. "Do you love my daughter, William?" he asked, demanding a brutally honest answer. 

Spike met his Warrior Sire's forceful gaze without fear. He knew what Angel was asking. Could he, a soulless vampire prevented from hunting the innocent with only a piece of technology stuck in his brain, be trusted with the life of this man's Slayer daughter. 

"Yes," Spike answered, conveying the depth of his feeling for the young Aurora completely with the one simple word. And for the first time since he met Aurora and lost his heart, he knew it to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt. He would lay down his own immortal life, would gladly spend an eternity in Hell, if it meant Aurora would live to see one more sunrise.

"And what about Aurora?" Buffy asked, also rising along with her voice. "Does she love you?"

Spike faltered, not sure how to answer. "I think she does," he offered carefully. "She told me she does, and I feel in my soul she means it."

Silence fell over the room. Spike waited for some snide remark from the blonde mother of his beloved about his mention of his soul, but none came. Buffy, after sharing one of her silent conferences with her own soulmate, simply nodded and led the group out of her daughter's room to the downstairs training gym.

"What? No snide little remarks? No threats?" Spike prodded. He wasn't used to the Slayer and her humanized vamp mate being so nice to him.

"Leave it to my kid to go and hook up with you," Buffy sighed, shaking her head.

"You hurt my baby, I'll rip you apart, my boy," Angel growled in Spike's ear.

Spike felt better. The world as he knew it was back on its axis.

***************

Lindy Rothchild was just about to give up. She was at the end of her rope. The carvings on her archeological discovery were slowly but surely driving her up the canvas walls of the research tent.

"Coffee?" Lindy rose her weary eyes to the lead archeologist, Samuel Wolff, standing at in the doorway created by the raised tent flap.

She smiled tiredly. "Yes, please," she sighed, accepting the offered cup of steaming black liquid. 

"So how's it going?" Sam asked, nodding to the stone dominating the room.

Lindy rubbed the back of her neck, frustrated at the knots throbbing there. "It's useless. I can't even figure out what language the carvings are, much less decipher them."

Sam reached out, stilling Lindy's hand. "It's okay," he said, concerned. "Give it time. You'll figure it out. Just don't rush it. There's more than enough time."

The younger archeologist pulled away, agitated. "And that guy… that private eye, Angel… He knew what this is! I know it! How can he know and not tell me!"

"I'll tell you what it is, dear."

The two scientists whipped around in fright at the sound of the unknown female voice. 

Sam Wolff swallowed hard. The owner of the voice was beautiful. A petite blonde with the sweetest smile and skin like milk. She entered the room with feline grace, her eyes locked on the relic under discussion.

"Look at my present, Grandmummy. Isn't it beautiful? It sings to me."

Another vision of beauty entered Sam's view. She was tall and in dark contrast to her blonde companion, with skin as purely white as the full moon overhead. She didn't walk. She danced, moving to music only she could hear, her dark velvet eyes closing in the rapture of it.

"Who are you?" Lindy asked, chilled with fear. She tried to catch Sam's eye, but the man was staring slack-jawed at the female strangers.

The blonde woman, clearly the leader of the group (Lindy could see some burly men just outside the tent opening) turned to her, still smiling her sweet smile. "Oh, I'm just a history buff, dear," she said, her voice melodious with a hint of something darker under the surface. Lindy shivered under the strange woman's icy gaze.

"Can you hear it, Grandmummy? Can you hear it singing?"

The blonde glanced at the dancing brunette, irritated. "No, Drusilla, I can't. Will you please be quiet while I deal with our hosts? You do want your present, don't you? And stop calling me Grandmummy!"

"Of course." Drusilla danced around the stone to the frozen archeologists, capturing Sam's eye with her own. "Can I have a party favor?"

Darla sighed. The girl could be such a bother. "Not now," she answered curtly.

Lindy swallowed, her mouth gone dry. "What do you want with us?" she asked the blonde leader, not wanting to anger the woman any further.

"We don't want anything with you, my dear. We want the stone," Darla explained. 

Lindy frowned, her curiosity getting the better of her fear. "What is it? I have to know."

"It's death," Drusilla hissed, dancing around Lindy. The scientist could see the madness shining from the dark-haired beauty's black eyes. 

Drusilla twirled back to Sam, who was following her every step and sway. He thrilled at the long fingers whispering up his shoulders and neck. "Please, Darla, can I have a party favor? Angelus let me have a party favor."

Sometimes it was just easier to give Drusilla what she wanted, Darla knew. "Fine," she sighed, exasperated. "Have your party favor."

Sam turned his head to see the angel at his back, but his blood froze his heart when he found a demon in stead. Feral yellow eyes leered at him from under a heavy brow, light catching off elongated canines. His scream was cut short by the vampire's fangs ripping into his exposed throat.

Lindy stared at the monster draining her partner and friend of his life. She couldn't scream. She had no air in her lungs to scream. Dr Samuel Wolff's lifeless, bloodless corpse dropped to Lindy's feet. She finally screamed. 

"Sam! Oh my God, no, Sam!" she sobbed.

Darla spoke softly, soothingly. "It's alright, dear," she cooed, letting her hand smooth the young human's hair. "You'll be with him soon." 

Lindy looked up, terror singing in her veins. The blonde woman's face shifted, baring fangs to her in a monstrous smile. The hand stroking Lindy's hair closed into a fist, dragging her painfully to her feet. "No, please don't," Lindy begged, her heart hammering in her chest.

The blonde vampire let her tongue steal over her fangs, hunger flashing in her golden eyes. The trembling human's terror smelled delectable. 

Lindy's racing heart sped up, hitched, skipped beats and fell silent as Darla pulled her life's blood from her neck, letting the body drop to the floor next to her dead partner.

"Okay, boys!" Darla ordered, her body glowing with the glorious blood pumping through her undead veins. "Let's get what we came for. Deh'ras is waiting."

*************** 

Deh'ras dropped his unconscious cargo into the iron cage, slamming the door shut and snapping the lock in place.

Aurora came awake with a start at the echoing crash of her prison's door. She sat up fast and instantly regretted it when the world grayed in and out, her head hollering in protest.

Deh'ras looked at the small human groaning in pain and grinned maliciously. "Awake so soon, Slayer? No matter. You'll be dead in a few days. You might as well enjoy your last days."

Aurora eyed her captor through the bars of her cage. "Why don't you just kill me now and get it over with? Make it easy on yourself, before I find a way out of this cage," she said defiantly.

The young Slayer's defiance was met with deafening laughter. "You'll never see the sun again, my pretty Slayer. And come the Night of Argonius, your death with bring on the Apocalypse." The demon left a stunned Aurora to the night, his roaring laugh echoing through the cavernous chamber.


	6. Aurora Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5 ****

CHAPTER 5

"How much does her Watcher know about us?" Buffy was busy putting supplies in her bag, but held Spike's gaze nonetheless.

Spike was testing the weight and balance of a battle ax in his hand, swinging it around. He nodded, pleased with the weapon and answered, "Nothing. The Council did a full background check on Aurora. Guess they were worried of ending up with another Faith, but they didn't find much. Only what Peaches over there wanted them to know."

"Are you sure?" Angel asked, looking up from the sword he's been sharpening, annoyance at the old nickname written on his frowning brow.

Spike smirked at the frown, pleased to see the annoyance. "Yeah, I sneaked a peek at Nate's files. They had a whole lot of nothing, not even your names. They had you down as Anne and John Liam, no middle name available. Liam Corp was a damn press release. No real detail. I tell you, peaches, you really know how to disappear."

Angel merely nodded and returned to his sharpening, his mind worrying over the possibility that a Raz'lah with familial ties to his old enemy Mah'lak was stalking his daughter.

Spike must have been thinking the same thing. "Say, hadn't you faced a Raz'lah before?" the blonde vampire asked, frowning at the foggy memory.

"Yeah, I did," Angel said simply. "He's dead now."

"Family member?" Buffy wondered.

Angel shrugged his broad shoulders. "I don't know. Mah'lak didn't really feel like sharing his family tree with me. He was too busy trying to open the Hellmouth at the time. But it's possible."

"But how does Acathla fit into this? After I …. um… after our fight, wasn't Acathla shut down permanently?" Buffy frowned, checking the edge of a lethal-looking dagger before depositing it to a hidden sheath behind her back.

Angel's hand stilled on the blade of his sword, remembering. "There was a prophecy regarding the awakening of Acathla that concerned a ritual performed on the Night of Argonius. It was pretty vague. Something about devouring the light to bring forth the dark. I never really paid much attention to it. I had enough trouble figuring out my own prophecy to worry about something that wouldn't happen in some 20-odd years."

"It's 20-odd years later now," Spike reminded them. "And the Night of Argonius is nearly upon us."

"So let's get going then," Buffy said, slinging the loaded bag over her shoulder, eager to pound some evil into the ground. Angel's sword disappeared into the folds of his long coat billowing out behind him as he followed his Slayer wife out the door. Spike let his gaze appreciate the view of the powerful couple walking into battle before swinging the ax over his shoulder and exiting the well-equipped room.

"There's a gentleman waiting for Master Spike in the foyer." The butler stood at attention, barring the party's way to the door. 

'I have no idea,' Spike shrugged at the questioning glances her received, making his way to follow the butler and carelessly tossing the battle ax in Angel's general direction. Angel caught the flying weapon deftly, issuing an annoyed growl at the smirking vampire.

"Where's Aurora?" Greg Nathaniel, better known as Nate to the Slayer under his care, was frantic. She was upset when he talked to her on the phone. And now she's missing. He was praying the girl was still here with Spike and her parents, but something deep down told him otherwise.

Spike frowned. What was the Watcher doing here? Why wasn't he with Aurora on patrol? "She's not with you?" he asked, dread crawling up his spine.

Nate's heartbeat picked up speed. "When did she leave?" Maybe there was nothing to worry about. The girl wasn't known for her punctuality, hope whispered in his ear.

"About an hour ago." Maybe she had a far walk, Spike hoped, but that hope was dashed at the sight of the Watcher's paling face. "Oh God! She's missing?"

"I'm sure she's fine. The girl is quite capable of looking after herself." Nate didn't sound so sure of his words and saying them didn't ease the apprehension squeezing his heart.

"The 'girl' isn't even supposed to be out there now! I told you this yesterday, but you Watchers always think you know better!" Spike bellowed, fear for his Slayer putting an edge to his fury.

"Spike, gotta go. Now!" Angel ordered, shoving the battle ax back into the furious vampire's hands. Buffy glared at the stranger shuffling his feet in her foyer. She could smell the stink of the Watchers' Council all over the man. "I got a call. The dig was attacked."

Searing pain knifed through Spike's brain as the chip punished him for his murderous thoughts. He hadn't wanted to bury an ax in somebody's skull so badly as he did with the tired-looking Watcher right now.

"Right," he growled through clenched teeth, following the dark-haired man and petite blonde out the door, leaving Nate standing alone and miserable in the foyer. "You were having the dig watched?" 

"One of my people were in the States," Angel answered simply. 

Spike nodded. "At least if our demon was busy ripping off the dig site, he couldn't be out stalking Aurora."

"The dig was taken by two vamps. Females. Unidentified. Seems our demon has some partners." Angel opened the trunk of the car waiting for him, checking on the supplies in the back. "If we're quick and lucky, we'll be able to track them back to their lair."

Nate followed Spike and the two people he established as Aurora's parents out of the enormous house. It needled at him why they looked so familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it. That they knew of the existence of the darker creatures stalking humanity was clear, and also an interesting mystery. 

But all the pieces fell into place when the mother said, "Angel…"

Angel found Buffy's anxious gaze, reading the plea there. He reached her in two quick strides. "I need to find her, Angel," Buffy said, the subject not open for discussion.

"Okay," Angel agreed. They could cover more ground if they split up. And speed was of the essence, he knew. "Spike and I will go to the dig and try to pick up the trail there. You follow Aurora. Take the Watcher with you."

Buffy opened her mouth to argue, but her husband cut her off. "Buffy, don't argue. He knows her patrolling routes. It'll go faster. When we get Aurora back, we'll deal with him and his. Right now, he can be of use to us."

"Fine," the elder Slayer agreed grudgingly. "Be careful." She kissed Angel urgently, his arms snaking around her waist. They clung to each other for a moment before separating for the hunt.

"I'll call if I find anything. Be careful, Buffy. I love you." Angel's arms felt empty when he let his wife free from the prison of his embrace. He shivered at her fingers brushing his cheek and the declaration of love written in her eyes.

"Come on, ya bloody poof!" Spike called impatiently from the car. "Time's a–wastin'!"

"Impatient Childe," Angel grumbled under his breath, automatically falling back to his old manner of address for the blonde demon. This elicited a smile from Buffy who pushed him in the waiting vampire's direction.

The car pulled away with a screech of tires, leaving Buffy alone with her daughter's Watcher. She started walking, cutting across the expansive gardens to the wall surrounding the property. "You coming?" she called over her shoulder, spurring Nate into a stiff jog to catch up.

*************** 

"Look at the pretty bird in her pretty cage."

Aurora jumped at the sing-song voice echoing around her. She searched the shadows, her keen Slayer vision picking up the subtlest movements in the darkness.

"Can I play with the pretty bird?" 

The owner of the voice was unknown to Aurora. She identified the dark-haired woman as a vampire. 'Vampire guards?' she wondered, but dismissed that idea. This one wasn't a minion. She had the air of a Master.

"No, Drusilla. We don't want to damage the girl before the ritual."

Aurora watched a second vampire, also a Master, step up to the tall brunette. This one was blonde and deceptively small. One of the first things Aurora learned as the Slayer was to never judge a vampire's ability on their appearance.

"And don't pout. I'm not in the mood."

The vampire the blonde called Drusilla slid gracefully up to Aurora's cage, an elegantly menacing smile enhancing her beauty even more. "Daddy would have let me play with her, Darla."

"Well, Daddy's not here, is he?" Darla snapped, her eyes flashing. "Be careful with that!" A loud crash reverberated through the chamber under the falling weight of an immense stone. Darla roared furiously and pounced on a hapless minion, ripping his head clean off and reducing him to dust. 

Drusilla grabbed her head and mewled, "He's screaming. Freedom… he's screaming for freedom, for blood." She spun to face Aurora, who was watching all this unfold in awe and confusion. "You stopped us once! You won't stop us again."

"Huh?" Aurora wondered aloud, frowning.

"Eyes of the Angel-beast! They burn! They burn!" Drusilla keened, as if in real physical pain. "All alone, my family against me! You stole them from me. All alone… All alone… Faces dancing in the stars… they confuse."

Aurora blinked. "I hope you realize your partner is a raging loony," she quipped at Darla.

Darla just laughed, ignoring the whimpering vampire cowering on the floor. "Drusilla is eccentric. But she's still one of the most creatively vicious creatures I know. Her daddy taught her well. How fitting that it would be you to finish his work."

"I'm sorry," the young Slayer said flippantly. "My dad taught me that you should always finish yourself what you've started. I guess you'll just have to get Vamp Daddy to finish his own dirty work."

At Aurora's mention of 'Vamp Daddy', Drusilla started moaning and keening again. "No Daddy… no Daddy… the Angel-beast wears his face."

"Shut up, Drusilla!" Darla ordered, agitated. "Enjoy your last hours, Slayer. Come tomorrow midnight, you'll die and everything you hold dear will be destroyed!"

The blonde vampire grabbed her companion by the arm, dragging the wailing brunette up the stairs into whatever structure waited above.

"Okay," Aurora said to the near-empty chamber and the stone package that caused the trouble. "That was clear as mud. Psycho nutcase. Oh, Spike… where are you?"

Lying down on the cage floor, cerulean eyes danced in the Slayer's mind's eye, her heart crying out desperately for her beloved to find her, to carry her away from this insanity.


	7. Aurora Chapter 6

Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

** **

Spike shifted nervously in his seat and sighed impatiently.

"She'll be alright," Angel said, quickly hazarding a glance at the restless vampire before turning his divided attention back to the road.

"You sound about as certain about that as I feel, mate," Spike growled, his eyes locked on the tarmac rushing by underneath the powerful automobile.

"If she's half the Slayer her mother is, she will be fine."Pride made Angel sound more sure of his daughter's precarious position.

Spike smiled, nodding."She's good," he agreed, his chest puffing just a little bit with pride."She's the best I've ever seen, including the Buff.Aurora outshines them all."

Angel watched Spike intently, warmed inwardly by the love and pride radiating from the immortal creature.Spike's smile faded a little, worry clouding over the beautiful face."But she's still so young, so new to this world.When her mother was her age…."

"She'd already died once," Angel finished the thought."And you…"

"Nearly killed Buffy more than once."Spike sighed heavily again.Aurora could take care of herself, but she's only been fighting the forces of darkness for six months.That's not a lot of time to prepare facing two Master vampires and a Raz'lah demon bent on sucking the world into Hell.Not even if she was the daughter of the Slayer and the Scourge of Europe.

"We'll find her and save her."This time the certainty in Angel's voice resounded so clearly, anyone hearing it would curse himself as a fool for trying to get in the man's way.

The car pulled into the dig site parking lot.The stench of horrifying death hung heavily in the air.Spike couldn't help but thrill at the scent.He was, after all, still a creature of evil.He sensed the human beside him echoing his feeling, and grinned at the idea of once again being able to hunt with his old teacher.

Angel remembered the smell of terror and the exhilaration his vampiric self had felt at some mortal cowering in his hands, begging for his life.His heart beat just a little bit faster now, pumping the adrenaline through his body."Come on," he ordered, his voice gruff with barely suppressed hunger, and stalked off to the tented-off area.

Spike admired the predatory grace with which his old Sire still moved.He followed wordlessly, letting Angel take the lead in their hunt.

They walked into a nightmare of blood and death.Whatever humans the rampaging vampires had found, they had killed in various horrendous ways.Not all were drained.Some had their throats ripped out, their necks broken so viciously their heads were partly ripped off.There were no rhyme of reason to the death Spike and Angel were seeing.

And yet something in the scene before them rang terribly familiar."Drusilla," Spike breathed, his quiet heart close to jumping in his chest.

"Could it be?" Angel wondered, knowing the answer all to well.He'd seen her massacre an entire church of terrified mothers and children in much the same fashion, never feeding, just killing, laughing her insane laugh all the while.Then, as Angelus still controlled his actions, he'd reveled in her evil play.Now he shivered as cold fear crawled up his spine to find his heart.

"It's her, Angel," Spike confirmed."It's Drusilla.I can smell her.My blood recognizes her even after all these years."

Angel nodded, understanding.His blood, though human and alive, still recognized his immortal Childe, tugging at his will and his senses."That means the other female is Darla."

The mention of Darla's name shifted Angel's senses to recognize the other aching in his blood.It was the unmistakable calling of a Childe for his Sire.He breathed in, catching her scent over the stench of spilled blood.

"Aurora's in more serious danger than we thought," Spike remarked."They'll know who she is, just like I did."

Angel turned to exit the tent, following the scent of his Sire and Childe."They won't kill her.Not until tomorrow night.We have until then."

Spike, having spend a century at the side of the dark, insane Drusilla, exploded furiously, "No!Dru won't kill her!She'll just enjoy torturing her to the point of death!She'll want to impress _'Daddy' with how well she'd learned her lessons!"_

Angel recoiled as if struck.The truth hurt, he knew.If Drusilla hurt his baby girl, it would be his fault.He'd put the taste for pain in Drusilla and had nurtured that taste to a full-blown hunger while she was under his tutelage.And now she has the opportunity to sate that hunger on his daughter, not to mention repay him for deserting her twice and trying to slay her more than twice.Two birds, one stone.One blood-soaked stone.

"Oh, come on!" Spike growled angrily, stalking into the night."We don't have time for you to go all 'guilty brooding guy' again.Aurora needs us!"

Angel grabbed a hold of Spike's arm, halting him in mid-stride."This time there's no other way.Drusilla will have to die.Can you handle that?"

An anguished look crossed Spike's handsome face.He had loved Dru through a few lifetimes.Even when she trampled over his heart with her sharp-heeled shoes he had loved her, and he would probably never stop until the day he was dust himself.She was in his blood, but the young Slayer was in his soul."If Dru hurt Aurora, I will stake her myself," he said with conviction."And that goes for Darla too."

An identical anguished looked darkened Angel's features, but he nodded, his jaw set stubbornly.

"Well, alright then, now that we've cleared that up, can we go?"Angel followed the platinum blonde across the dig site to the parking area when a near-inaudible sound caught his attention.

Spike realized the broad-shouldered Warrior wasn't behind him.He spun around, rankled at yet another precious minute wasted."What now, you bloody wanker?!"

"Shut up, Spike!" Angel shushed the vampire, pushing his anger back down."Listen."

For once, Spike did as he was told.Silence assaulted their hyper-sensitive ears.Spike drew in a breath for a scathing remark when he heard it too.A whimper.Then his vampiric senses kicked in too.The smell of human terror, the pounding rush of human blood washed over the vampire, causing his body to cry out with need and want.

"Over there," he whispered.No ordinary human would have heard him, but Angel was no ordinary human.Silently, the two men glided to where their prey hid.

The long-haired boy shrieked, panic bubbling to the surface, when Spike grabbed him by the back of the neck, dragging him out of his makeshift hideyhole.

Angel grabbed him by the front of his dirty t-shirt, pulling him up to meet Angel's eyes."Calm down, kid.It's okay.We're not going to hurt you."

Angel recognized the boy as the same young man who'd directed him to the now-deceased Lindy Rothchild earlier that same day.His eyes were stretched impossibly wide, the pupils black pits in the sky blue.His mouth was pulled open in an unending silent scream.

"The kid's in shock," Spike stated.

Angel rewarded Spike's remark with an annoyed glance and turned his attention back to the lost young man in his hands."Kid!Look at me," Angel ordered.

The authority in the smooth voice pulled the boy's eyes to meet Angel's concerned gaze."They're dead," he moaned, the young voice hitching."They killed them all.Oh God!Oh God!"

He was starting to panic again."It's okay.They're gone," Angel soothed, keeping eye contact with the deathly pale boy."Tell me what happened."

"Oh God!Oh God!All dead!"

"This is useless!" Spike sighed frustratedly."You're not going to get anything out of him."

Never breaking eye contact, Angel growled, "Shut up, Spike!"

The vampire stomped off, afraid he might just forget the chip lodged in his cerebral cortex and rip the dark-haired fucker's head off.

"The woman…" the survivor gulped."She danced… while she …. she… She wasn't human!None of them were!What were they?Oh dear God, what were they?"

"It's alright.They're gone.You're safe now."Angel forced his voice to remain soft and even, even though he wanted to shake the long-haired kid until the information locked behind the staring eyes fell out of him.

"The rock!They stole it.A big truck.They had a big truck.Did they die over a big, stupid, goddamned rock?"

"Where did the truck go?" Spike asked urgently from behind the boy's head.He jumped, terror flashing high in the sky blue eyes, craning his neck to see the darkly clad man behind him.

Angel pulled his face back, reestablishing the calming eye contact with him.He repeated Spike's question, keeping his voice low and smooth.

The kid responded.His eyes focused on Angel."I heard them talking.The Hills.Oceanfront Hills.That's what they said."

Angel met Spike's eyes.They had a location.Anticipation thrilled through them.

"Call the police.Tell them what happened here."

The trembling young man stared after the two departing men, calling desperately not to be left there by himself.The dark-haired man and his blonde companion ignored his pleas, their long coats billowing out behind them.


	8. Aurora Chapter 7

Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The phone shrilled in Spike's hand, startling the on-edge vampire.He yelped and nearly dropped the ringing box.

"Answer it, you idiot!" Angel snapped, his eyes never leaving the dark road ahead.

Spike glared furiously at the dark-haired hulk of a man before jabbing at the buttons on the phone, abruptly shutting the insistent ring up."Yeah," he answered, anger rumbling in the back of his throat.

"Spike?Can't you two get along for five minutes without wanting to rip each other's throats out?Put Angel on."

"It's Buffy."Spike held Angel the phone.

"Put her on speaker," Angel ordered, watching his vampire passenger nimbly deposit the small phone into the speaker unit.

"Did you find anything?" Angel asked the dashboard.

Buffy's voice, sweet and clear, drifted up to the two men."We found her bag.And some blood."

Angel's heart missed a beat, Spike blanching at the mention of found blood.

"There wasn't a body or signs of a struggle.I think whatever took her knocked her unconscious and took her with him."

Both Angel and Spike let out pent-up breaths in relief.

"Our 'whatever has a name," Buffy continued."The Watcher identified the Raz'lah as Deh'ras, brother to Mah'lak.We have our familial connection.My guess is brother dearest wants to finish what Mah'lak started."

"And avenge his brother's death while he's at it," Angel finished his wife's thought, guilt darkening his voice and features.

Buffy heard what her husband must be thinking and said, "This isn't your fault, Angel.Don't blame yourself.I don't."

A small smile pulled at Angel's generous mouth."Thank you," he said lovingly before his voice dropped again.Time to deliver the bad news."But you might not feel so generous when you hear what we found."

Her frown was audible when Buffy replied, "Tell me."

"Deh'ras found himself some partners," Angel began, dreading how his wife will react to the news.

"Who?"Audible dread.

"Darla and Drusilla."

"Oh God," Buffy breathed."Are you sure?"

"Of course we're sure, Slayer," Spike piped up from his side of the car."Do you think we'd joke about a thing like that?"

Silence greeted the vampire's snide question."Buffy?" Angel called carefully.

"They're going down.Permanently.And if either of you try to stop me, I will kill you myself."Barely controlled fury blazed from the hidden speakers, enveloping Sire and Childe in its heat.

After another uncomfortable silence, this time on the men's side of the conversation, Angel cleared his throat and said, "Some luck might be on our side in this.We found a survivor at the dig site.He told us the truck was heading to Oceanfront Hills.We're on our way there now."

"Oceanfront?That's a big area to cover, but it narrows it down.I'll meet you there.How long until sunrise?" Buffy asked.

Spike answered the question obviously asked with him in mind."Not for a few more hours yet, pet.The Hills are riddled with caves.I won't get caught outside when dawn comes."

"Be careful.Both of you," Buffy admonished."It's been a lot of years, but…"

"We will, Buffy.Please be careful, too.We don't know how many minions they control."A terrible feeling of foreboding was creeping up Angel's neck, making the short hairs stand on end.

*************** 

The Slayer frowned at the anxiety she heard in her husband's voice.It made her nervous.Angel had always had the ability to tell when she was in trouble, and he was very rarely wrong.She had to stay sharp, she knew, her enhanced Slayer senses going into overdrive.

"What's wrong?" Nate asked, pulling Buffy out of her reverie.

Buffy shook her head, saying, "It's nothing."She hadn't talked to the Watcher, except to pump him for information on the demon stalking her daughter.

Nate was getting tired of the woman's icy indifference to him.When he tried to bring up the subject of her own colorful past with the Watchers' Council, she outright ignored him.He'd expected as much from the rebellious Slayer, but when she refused to share the upsetting information she'd just received from her demon (or ex-demon) consort, it was just too much.

"It's not nothing!If it concerns Aurora, I have a right to know!Now tell me!" he ordered in his I'm-the-Watcher-you're-just-the-Slayer fashion.

Buffy whirled around, the tenuous hold she had on her tongue snapping."Right?!" she roared."You have NO right where _my daughter is concerned!Tell me, Watcher, were you planning on letting Aurora go home to her family, to her home in Australia?Or were you just going to keep her here until you got her killed?Oh no, wait!I know what you would do.You'll send your special unit to kill us and get custody of her.That sounds like a Council thing to do!"_

"Aurora wouldn't turn her back on her duty like you did.She would stay of her own free will, because it is the right thing to do and because it is what is expected of the Slayer," Nate threw back, his British stoicism slipping."Furthermore, her own reckless behavior will get her killed.And I can see where she gets _that from! But with the proper training, she could live to become one of the greatest Slayers ever."_

"Training?Is that what you call it?Is that what you call locking a defenseless Slayer in a house with a psycho vampire?Is that what you call attempted murder?"The elder Slayer's hazel eyes blazed with barely repressed violence, forcing the bewildered Watcher to step back.

"And which one of you geniuses had the bright idea of moving Acathla from one Hellmouth, only to bury him a few miles from another one?!California is right next to the Pacific, the biggest damn ocean on the planet!What?You didn't think dumping the demon capable of sucking the world into hell into the ocean?Or would that have required you lot to use your brains?"

A vampire had seen the little human female's tirade as the perfect opportunity to strike. Bringing the Slayer's Watcher to his master would earn him quite a reward, he knew.He stepped up behind the screaming woman, and was just about to pounce when he felt the wooden death being shoved into his chest."I'm busy!" was the last thing he heard before his world turned to dust.

Nate shrunk into himself when this angry Slayer raised her crossbow to his chest.She fired a bolt at him and he yelped, a wet spot appearing on his crotch.'I don't even feel it,' he thought amazed, but yelped again when the exploding remains of the dusted vamp behind him hit his sweat-chilled neck.

"Wrong Slayer, genius," Buffy sneered derisively."I never killed humans.That was Faith, the Slayer you tried to kill, remember?Fucking moron."As if to punctuate her final statement, Buffy kicked back, catching another attaching vampire square in the chest, sending the female demon flying.

In the blink of an eye, the two humans were surrounded by six minions chomping at the bit to avenge the deaths of their kindred.

"Make yourself useful," Buffy ordered the quivering Watcher, tossing him a stake.The pointy piece of wood fumbled in his shaking hand and dropped.He dropped after it, grappling desperately for the weapon.

The Slayer sailed over where his head was a split second ago, her hard boot heel caving in an advancing vampire's head.She pounced onto the downed demon's chest and drove a stake into his undead heart.

"Getting out of the way of the nasty demons would be a great way to make yourself useful too," Buffy offered as she turned to face off with a fanged twosome.

Nate's cry diverted Buffy's attention away from the attacking demons.The Watcher's slumped body was being lifted hurriedly by an eager minion.

Buffy gave chase, but didn't get far.She let out an involuntary yelp when the tranquilizer dart punctured her shoulder.Darkness crept into her vision's periphery as the drugs worked their way through her system.

"What a wonderful surprise!Two Slayers for the price of one."

Buffy craned her neck to see the owner of the crowing voice in charge of the few minions still left standing.

"Riley?" she gasped, shocked to the core at the fast dimming sight of the tall, smirking vampire holding a high-powered tranquilizer gun.


	9. Aurora Chapter 8

Chapter 8 ****

Chapter 8

"Mom! Please, Mom, wake up!"

Aurora's frantic calls wormed their way through Buffy's numbed mind. "I'm up," Buffy mumbled. Her tongue felt thick and heavy in her mouth. "I'm up," she tried again, her speech sounding slurred to her ears.

'What happened last night?', Buffy strained to remember. It was only when she tried to sit up on the uncommonly hard bed, and found herself incapable of doing so, that the fog departed from her drug-addled mind.

"You stay the hell away from her! Mom!"

Buffy's eyes flew open, meeting the cold, soulless eyes of who used to be Riley Finn. "Well, look who's finally up," Riley smirked. "I thought you were going to sleep through the whole thing."

"What whole thing?" Buffy asked. The muscles in her shoulders screamed, but she found herself securely chained to a hard slab of marble. 'Altar?', the chained Slayer wondered, testing the chains. 

Riley laughed cruelly. "Don't bother. The chains are quite unbreakable. I wonder why we never tried chains. We could have had so much fun."

"Oh, spare me!" Buffy rolled her eyes. 

"Not a chance, babe!" Riley spat, hatred fresh and hot in his gaze. "I kinda wish you can watch when I kill your little brat, but we need a dress rehearsal." The vampire lifted the dagger just high enough to catch the reflected light of the candles off its vicious curved blade.

"Mom, no!" 

Buffy heard the panic in her daughter's voice. "It's okay, baby," she soothed, twisting her neck to see her caged daughter. Tears were streaming down Aurora's face, making her appear so very young. "Don't worry, sweetheart. Mommy's right here."

"How sweet," Riley gagged. "But I have to disagree. Everything is very far from okay for you. Either of you." He lifted the dagger high over his head and started to chant.

Buffy knew it was now or never. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to be calm, to find the center of her being where she was absolutely still. The stillness spread through her being. All was silence. She breathed. Buffy felt the downward arc of the dagger. She exhaled, reached. The dagger was caught between her palms inches from her chest. Buffy opened her eyes.

"What the…?! That's impossible!" Riley roared.

"For you maybe," Buffy quipped, landing a solid punch against Riley's exposed chin. 

He staggered back, stunned. "Get her!" he bellowed at the unsure minions melting into the shadows. Three attacked.

Buffy had no weapon, but that never stopped her before. She relieved an ax-wielding vampire of his weapon and then relieved him of his head, before jabbing the wooden handle, blunt end and all, through another's chest.

"This is the best you can do?" she taunted Riley. "Afraid you can't take me? Come on, Riley! Take me down! Maybe you'll finally get it right." Riley howled, insanely furious, and lunged at the small woman.

"Enough!" The shout froze everyone in their tracks. "Riley, back off! This is not the time for your games."

Buffy couldn't help herself. She just had to grin with pleasure at the once-proud good guy squirming in his combat boots under Darla's annoyed stare.

"Lock her in the cage," Darla ordered the cowering minions. "Please don't try anything heroic, my dear," the blonde vampire requested mock-sweetly of Buffy, who had taken a battle stance, eyeing the approaching vampires with a warrior's determination. "Or I'd be forced to rip his throat out."

Buffy glanced at Darla holding the near-catatonic Nate, his throat bared to her extended fangs. She considered letting Darla kill the Watcher, but Aurora's miserable cry of despair stopped her. 

"Fine," Buffy surrendered, dropping the ax. "I give. For now."

The elder Slayer allowed herself to be grabbed by the arms and hurled into her daughter's cage. Aurora launched herself into her mother's waiting arms, crushing her in a ferocious hug.

"Enjoy your last few hours together. Come midnight tomorrow you both die," Darla crowed in victory.

Buffy glared at her old enemy over her crying daughter's blonde head. "You won't touch my daughter, Darla. I'll see you dead first," she promised. "Or should I say again?"

"Maybe I'll keep you alive," Darla growled menacingly. "I have so much to pay you back for, it would take an eternity to even the score. I'm sure Drusilla and Riley would be most pleased."

"Yeah," Drusilla cooed from her Childe's arms, Riley purring in her ear. "Play with the Daddy-thief until she screams."

Buffy snorted in disgust. "God, Riley! Your taste in mommy figures always sucked, hadn't it?" Drusilla hissed at Buffy. Riley only glared at his caged ex-girlfriend and nuzzled Drusilla's neck, making her purr.

"Don't, Mom. Please?" Buffy met her baby's begging, tear streaked gaze, reading the mortal terror emblazoned there. This was a first for her Slayer daughter, Buffy realized. This young Slayer had never faced vampires of Darla or Drusilla's caliber yet, nor has she faced death by ritual sacrifice. She was 15 years old and scared to death at the idea of dying in a few hours. 

Buffy closed her arms tighter around the shaking girl, offering up her strength to ease her daughter's fear. "It's alright, baby. Everything will be alright. I promise," she comforted, offering up a quick prayer to Whoever was listening for salvation. 'Hurry, Angel', her heart implored.

*************** 

"What?" Spike watched Angel's face and didn't like what he was seeing.

Angel glanced at Spike from the driver's side of his parked car before turning his gaze back to the remote hilltop properties of Oceanfront Hills. "It's nothing," he said, a little muscle jumping in his clenched jaw.

Spike snorted. "Yeah, right! That's a 'nothing' face. Now spill!"

"Something's wrong," Angel offered vaguely. 

"Can I have some detail to go with that 'something?" Spike prodded.

"With Buffy," Angel growled. "Something's wrong with Buffy. I don't know what, but I think it's bad."

Spike bounded out of the car. "Then I suggest we get a move-on before your bad feeling gets worse and breaks your damn jaw."

The full moon illuminated the two men's path through the underbrush. No sense in advertising their arrival by rolling up in a big BMW. 

Angel halted, crouching down behind some brush cover, effectively disappearing into the shadows. "What now?" Spike hissed behind him, but also crouched down, just in case. Then he heard it too. Ahead and to their left, two goons were chatting their merry way up a walked-out path. 

'I'll take left,' Spike indicated wordlessly. 'You take right.'

The vampire tensed, his muscles rippling with feline grace and raw power. Angel felt the energy flowing through Spike's body under his restraining hand. 'Always the predator', he smiled inward, taking pride in his part in creating this beautiful creature. "Don't kill them yet," he mouthed in answer to Spike's frown, lifting his hand to free Spike.

The two vampire guards had no idea what hit them. Spike, in full vamp-out, leaped from his hiding place, taking down Lefty with a growl and a rockhard fist. Righty jumped to his comrade's defense, only to find his teeth knocked loose by Angel's boot.

"Tell us what we want to know, and we'll make it quick," Spike growled into Lefty's face, nose to nose with the recovering vampire.

Lefty, by nature a tough guy, spat in the blonde vampire's face and sneered, "Up yours, asshole!"

"Fine. We do it the hard way," Spike snarled, landing three bone crunching punches into Lefty's face. Blood erupted from his nose, broken so badly the bone was poking through his skin. His one eye went red and glassy as the blood vessels in the orb burst and the nerves and muscles holding it severed.

Angel grabbed Righty by his scrawny neck, squeezing hard enough to bruise the pale flesh beneath his long fingers. "Be smart," Angel threatened, adding a little more pressure to Righty's throat. "Tell us where they are."

Righty's eyes bulged out, his face beet-red. He risked a glance to his partner and paled in spite of the block of flesh holding his neck in a spine crushing grip. He tried to nod, gurgling submission to the more powerful man.

Angel eased up slightly on his prisoner's throat, letting him squeak out, "Mansion… 2 miles south…"

Lefty's one good eye bugged out at Righty. Spike read the fear and anger there. Lefty was pissed his buddy gave in so easily, and terrified of what would happen to him when their masters found out.

Righty ignored Lefty's silent scream for silence, croaking out everything his captor could use. If it kept him alive, or even earned him a quick, painless death, he'd spill whatever beans he had. "Surrounded by electrified fence…" He coughed, wincing as shards of bone scraped against his larynx. "Guards, demon and vampire, all over…"

"Where's the Slayer being held?" Spike asked, not caring which one of the two wounded goons answered.

Lefty spat into Spike's face again, some teeth bouncing off his cheek. Spike uttered a guttural roar, his golden eyes flashing fire. He tightened his grip on Lefty's chin and hair and twisted violently. Lefty's neck snapped loudly, followed by the wet tearing of his skin as Spike ripped his head clean off his shoulders, letting the foolish vampire's dust sift to his boots.

Righty squawked, his knees collapsing under him. Only Angel's vise grip under his chin kept him upright. If he still had bowel functions, he would have needed clean underwear. 

"See what your friend made me do?" Spike growled at Righty, getting right into his face to give the mortified vampire an extremely good look at his dripping fangs.

"Be a good minion and tell my friend what he wants to know," Angel hissed into Righty's ear. "Or I'll let him have his fun with you. My boy enjoys his fun."

Righty nodded so furiously, he nearly blacked out. "I'll talk! Please… I'll tell you everything!" Righty sobbed. "The Slayer… she's in the dungeon, underneath. A cavern under the main house. They're all being held there."

"All? Who else?" Angel demanded, already knowing the answer in his gut.

"The Slayer, the Watcher and the Slayer's mother. Please? Let me go," Righty begged, weeping openly.

Angel met Spike's gaze. "Buffy," he said simply, but Spike understood. The 'something' has been uncovered. 

Righty was still wimpering, not really seeing Spike or Angel anymore. He didn't hear Angel's words as the stake pierced his undead heart, turning him to dust. "You're free to go."

"Yeah," Spike crowed, shaking dead-vamp-dust off his hands. "You're free to go to Hell!"

"Come on, Spike," Angel said, starting to walk up the moonlit path. "Our girls are waiting for us."


	10. Aurora Chapter 9

Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

** **

Aurora pulled away from her mother, upset at how not upset she was acting."Stop saying that!It's not going to be alright!Look at us!Things are as far from alright as it could possibly get!"

The young Slayer started pacing wildly, panic taking root and growing in her."We're going to die.Oh God!They're going to come down here and rip our throats out.I can't die!Oh God!Nate would know what to do.Where's Nate?They killed him, didn't they?Oh God!Nate's dead, and it's my fault!Just like Mr Richards.If it wasn't for me, none of this would be happening!"

"Aurora, stop!" Buffy yelled, making the near-insane girl freeze in mid-stride."Your Watcher is not dead.We are not dead, nor are we going to be dead.Your teacher's death was not your fault.None of this is your fault.Do you understand me?"

Aurora refused to listen, even though every fiber in her being desperately wanted to believe her mother."How do you know?You can't know!You can't understand what my life is like!"

"Yes, I can!"The words slipped out of Buffy's mouth before she could stop them."I can understand what your life is like, and I do know!More than you think!"

"The only way you could understand what it's like to be me, to be responsible for the entire fucking world and still try to have a normal life, to be a teenage girl who's a Slayer…"

"Would be to be a Slayer too," Buffy finished her daughter's tirade, stunning Aurora into silence."I'm a Slayer, Aurora.I was called right here in Los Angeles when _I was fifteen.My responsibilities got me expelled from school.My first Watcher died protecting me, and I __still feel guilty over that.I had to lie to my family about who I was and what I was doing that kept me in constant trouble.I even had the police after me for murder a few times.I know your life, because it was my life too."_

Aurora was shaking her head, confusion crowding in to push the panic out."No, see, that can't be," she said, pacing again at a more sedate pace."Nate said only one can be chosen.One Slayer dies, the next is called.If you're a Slayer, then I can't be one.That can't be.You're wrong."

"I did die, baby," Buffy answered."When I was your age, maybe a little older.I faced a powerful vampire and he killed me.He drowned me, but I had a friend who brought me back.However, I did die and another Slayer was called.Your line runs from her."

"This is insane," Aurora muttered."How can I not know about this?Nate!He must know about this.Why didn't he tell me?Why didn't you?"

Buffy knew her daughter wouldn't accept it, but it was the only truth Buffy had to offer."We didn't tell you, because we wanted to protect you.We wanted your life to be normal.We never thought you would be called.The possibility never even entered our minds.The Powers had us.We simply assumed they would leave you in peace.

"As for Nathaniel, he didn't know who we were.We made sure of that.God knows what he would have done if he found out sooner who your parents were, but he knows now.I guess he figured it out when he finally met us, but I swear to you, I won't let him touch you.The Council will never get their hands on you."

Aurora's brow creased into a frown so identical to her father's, Buffy shuddered.It still amazes her how much of Angel she sees in their child, and now it only made her longing for her partner, both in life and in battle, all the more great.

The young Slayer didn't notice the shadow flitting across her mother's impossibly youthful features.She needed to understand what her mother meant by 'we', and why the Council or Nate would ever try to hurt her.Her question died before it reached her lips when the crazy raven-haired vampire danced into view, dragging a weeping Nate behind her by the hair.

"He's no fun anymore," Drusilla whined."You made Grandmummy grumpy."Nate shrieked when Dru lifted him to meet her entrancing eyes, pulling tufts of hair out of his aching scalp.

"Dru," Riley called from the stairs."Dump the Brit and come play with me."He leaped over the railing, landing gracefully at the foot of the stairs.Drusilla swayed to meet her approaching Childe, pulling Nate with her like a life-size whimpering doll.

Aurora gripped the bars of her cage, turning her knuckles white, and yelled furiously, "Let him go, you bitch!"

Riley jumped at Aurora, reaching for her young neck through the bars.Buffy moved with preternatural speed, grabbing his clawed hand and pulling back with more strength than was really needed for the job.The crack was deafening.The howl of pain was earsplitting.

Riley pulled his extremely broken arm back, cradling the limb tenderly against his body.He glared at Buffy with golden eyes swimming in tears.He bared his fangs at his once-upon-a–time girlfriend and snarled, "You'll pay for that, Slayer."

Drusilla hissed at the caged elder Slayer, Nate forgotten on the floor."No tea for you, my pretty.Shadows over the moon gets punished."

"God, Drusilla," Buffy griped."Did your brain finally hook out or are you just trying to impress me?"

A minion had appeared out of nowhere and was dragging Nate into the Slayers' prison.Aurora did a quick inventory of her Watcher's wounds, trying to ignore the wailing male vampire or the joyous giggle of his consort as she set his broken arm.

"Eyes like needles slithers with the snake," Drusilla started to coo, swaying to music drifting behind her unfocused eyes."Blood covers the moon, making the birdies scream."

"Huh?" Aurora sighed hard.Her head ached.If she had to listen to anymore of that crazy loon's sing-song riddles, _she would go crazy.And her mother was grinning like a loon.Was that a good thing or a bad thing?"Mom?You okay?"_

Buffy started to smile, the gold flecks in her hazel eyes sparking with pleasure."Yes, baby.Mommy's just fine," she whispered in her daughter's ear, helping to move the bloodied Watcher into a more comfortable position."Daddy's coming."

Aurora gasped in surprise and hope.Did she dare hope that they might actually get out of this thing alive and in one piece?

Drusilla's wailing froze the young Slayer's racing mind."Not Daddy!It's never Daddy.I miss Daddy."

"Oh, shut up, Dru," Riley snapped, fury and jealousy morphing his face into a nightmarish mask."I am so fucking sick of always having to listen to your whining about that fuck!Angel doesn't want you.He hates you!"

Dru moaned, pained at her Childe's harsh words.Her hooked fingers buried themselves in her midnight hair, pulling furiously.

Riley ignored the woman's distress, grabbing her brutally and hissing into her pale face, "I am going to cut him out of your life once and for all, and then I don't want to hear another word about him ever again!Today Angel dies!"

Drusilla screamed, pushing Riley away hard.His fingers tore loose of her arms as he was lifted off his feet and flew backwards.The dark-haired beauty ran weeping from the room.Riley growlingly got to his feet and made to follow his Sire.He was going to pay for this, he knew, but that would be good too.

"Still feeling inadequate, Riley?" Buffy goaded the vampire, a knowing smirk on her face.He only glowered and followed Drusilla out of the dungeon.

Aurora tapped her mom lightly on the shoulder."I get that you know them.You're a Slayer who grew up here, so you probably faced them before.But Dad too?Is he some kind of vampire hunter?Is that how you met?And why does that crazy vamp keep calling him 'Daddy'?"

"Your father has a …,"Buffy paused, searching for the right words. "He has a history with Drusilla."

Nate snorted derisively, his voice tight from biting back the pain shooting through his chest, "History.Is that what you call it, Ms Summers?"

"Shut up, Watcher.It is none of your concern," Buffy spat.

Aurora frowned at the exchange."Now what?" she growled, exasperated."Tell me or I swear I will kick both your asses!"

Buffy fidgeted with her clothes, not quite ready to meet her daughter's angry stare.Nate was clearly enjoying her discomfort, because he crowed, "Yes, go on.Tell your daughter who and what her father _really is.This should be good."_

Buffy wanted very badly to snap the Watcher's neck, but controlled the urge.She took a deep breath, stilled her restless fingers and met those familiar dark eyes, shining with annoyance bordering on rage.How many times over the years had Angel looked at her with those same eyes?Their relationship have always been explosive, to say the least.

"Your father was Drusilla's sire."

Aurora blinked.Did she hear her mother right?She did say 'sire', didn't she?"I'm sorry, what?" she asked, her heart pounding painfully against her chest.

Buffy took over her daughter's halted pacing."It's not like it sounds," she tried to explain hurriedly."He wasn't the same man who drove her insane when I met him.He'd changed."

"I'm still trying to figure out in what whacked-out reality a human man could sire a vampire?" Aurora quipped sarcastically."I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but Dad is human.Right?"

"Ah, yes, that… ummm," Buffy stumbled a little.She remembered when she first learned her husband's secret.She didn't handle it well.How would their daughter react, a Slayer in her own right, react to this?

"I knew this would be good," Nate giggled from his corner of the cage.

"SHUT UP, NATE!!!" the Slayers screamed at him in unison.

"Mom?" Aurora demanded."Tell me who my father is.Please, no more secrets.I'm a big girl.I can handle it."

Buffy sighed.It was time for all the secrets to come out of their closet.She prayed that the fall-out wouldn't rip her family apart in the process."Alright, baby.You're right.You have a right to know.Here's the Cliff notes version.Your father used to be a vampire until 15 years ago when he finally atoned to the Powers That Be.They made him human.I left with him, married him, had you, and we lived happily ever after until the PTBs decided to through a spanner in the works."

Aurora sat down hard.Her head was spinning trying to absorb all her mother just said."I think I need a little more detail than that, if that's okay," she said breathlessly."Dad was a vampire?He was evil?"

"He was evil, but only for 150 years.Then some gypsies cursed him.They returned his soul.He wasn't evil anymore.In fact, he saved my life on more occasions than I care to admit."

"Oh, good," Aurora mumbled, wishing her head would stop spinning.

Buffy didn't hear the ashen girl."Of course there were times when we were less than friends, but luckily Spike was there."Confession really was good for the soul, Buffy discovered.  
  


"I'm not feeling so good.Wait!Spike?Where does he fit into all this?"

Buffy was so wrapped up in her complicated history and which details to spare her daughter, she caught the question in the periphery of her mind."What?Oh!Spike, right.He was Drusilla's ….. ummmm … travel companion at the time," she answered."She left him shortly afterwards.She didn't appreciate him helping me against her."

"By travel companion, you mean 'mate', don't you?"Aurora couldn't hide the hurt rasping her heart to shreds.

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry."Buffy wrapped her arms around Aurora's shoulders, hugging her tight."You have to remember that Spike is well over a 100 years old.He's bound to have a few exes in his life."

Aurora pulled away suddenly, alarmed."Oh God!You're not one of those exes, are you?Please tell me I'm not dating my mother's ex-boyfriend!"

"No, I can honestly say that I never dated Spike.We were enemies for a long time, and we were friends too, but never more than that," Buffy reassured the worried girl.

Aurora nodded, accepting."And Spike was chipped by then?" she asked.Spike was never one to over-share when it came to his past.It was one of the few points of contention between the young Slayer and her vampire boyfriend.

"No, that happened later.He was captured by a military group called the Initiative.Riley's men collared and chipped him, but he escaped.Oh, he hated being chipped.It took him a long time to get used to the fact that he couldn't hunt humans anymore, but I think he hated being compared with your father by the rest of the demon community even more."

Aurora frowned again."Riley?That tall vamp with Drusilla?Why would a vampire do that to another vampire?"

Buffy frowned a little too, confused."No, Riley wasn't a vampire then.He was one of us.He was a good guy, albeit a stuffy, boring, unimaginative one, but a good guy nevertheless.He had some issues with my attachment to vampires that he couldn't get past.So we broke up and I guess he went and got himself turned.He never was one of the brightest bulbs in the packet."

"You dated him?This is getting very uncomfortable."Aurora eyed her mother warily.Was this really the woman she thought she knew so well?

Buffy dropped her head, ashamed."Your father had just left me to move to Los Angeles.I needed someone as far removed from him as I could get.Riley was Angel's complete opposite.And I admit, I used him terribly, but it still couldn't kill the love I felt for your father."

This time it was Aurora holding and comforting her mother."But Daddy came back to you.He didn't stop loving you either."

The elder Slayer allowed the memories of that day when her Angel returned to her as human to wash over her.She knew in her soul that if Angel had remained as he was; a vampire cursed with a soul, he would have left her again.The danger for awakening Angelus was just too great and he would never allow himself to become the brutal, soulless killer he was before."I never doubted he loved me, but our relationship was complicated.Circumstances that used to keep us apart finally changed and allowed us to be together."

"That makes no sense," Aurora questioned."If you loved each other then as much as you love each other now, what circumstances could be complicated enough to keep you apart?So he was a vampire.Big whoop!I'm dating a vampire and it's not that complicated."

Buffy dropped her tired brow into her hands.Reliving those horrid memories were slowly killing her all over again."Please, Aurora, no more," she begged.

"Alright," Aurora submitted."But I still don't understand why they want _me now.I think your past has something to do with it, but I can't see it.What is it about me that's kept me alive so far, but that's going to get me killed tomorrow night?"_

"It's your blood," Buffy answered simply.

Aurora fell silent.She had expected a long complicated explanation.Her mother's answer took the wind completely out of her sails."My blood?You mean the red stuff running through my veins?"

Buffy nodded.Now to explain this without revealing too much."Midnight is the beginning of the Night of Argonius.Only then, Acathla can be awakened by… well, I'm not sure on the exact details, but the prophecy says Acathla has to devour the light to bring forth the darkness, or something like that.I guess…"

"The vamps are going to sacrifice me to that stone thing to bring on the end of the world?Oh God!You'reall insane."Aurora couldn't see how a stone carving could end the world and she found it absurd that her mother would fall for something so crazy.

"I wish to God I was, because then there wouldn't be a problem," Buffy said, starting to pace again."But that stone thing is a very real threat.When he's awakened, he'll take a breath and swallow the world and everything in it into Hell.And your blood…"

"My blood awakens it?"Aurora felt the panic crowd in again, but fought it back."You know a lot about this demon.You faced it before?"

Buffy came to a standstill, her back turned to her daughter."Yes, I faced it before.And I stopped it."

"They were going to sacrifice you too?"

"No.The Night of Argonius only comes once in a millennium.Acathla had to be awakened by removing the blessed sword of the knight who defeated it and imprisoned it in stone."

"So Drusilla made you pull out the sword?I'm assuming Drusilla at least was in on this the first time.She seems very invested in her little project."Aurora didn't understand why, all of a sudden, her mother refused to share the most basic of information with her.Or maybe she didn't want to understand.

"Yes, Drusilla was involved the last time I faced Acathla, but it wasn't my blood they needed."Buffy's heart jack-hammered in her chest, her blood roaring in her ears.

"Daddy?" Aurora asked fearfully.The situation surrounding this piece of history was far more serious than her mother let on before.Her unwillingness to spill what she knew told Aurora more than she wanted to know.

"Yes, child.Your father had such vision, but he was thwarted and his dream destroyed.I'll see to it my boy's dream comes true."None of the captives had noticed Darla watching them intently until she spoke, her voice malevolent and sweet.

Buffy stepped protectively in front of her daughter, shielding her with her body."You want her, you'll have to go through me."

"You don't get it!" Darla snarled with vicious joy and hunger."I'm counting on it!Finally killing you is what I've been dreaming about since the day you stole him from me."

The two women bristled at each other through the bars of the cage, the air charged with repressed violence."Soon," Darla grinned, the predator hiding behind her blue eyes gleaming.

It was six hours until midnight, the Night of Argonius.


	11. Aurora Chapter 10

Chapter 10 ****

Chapter 10

"Admit it, you bloody poof! We're lost!" Spike was mortified. If anybody found out about this. 

Angel stalked off, taking first one blind turn, then another. "For the hundredth time, we are _not lost!_"

Spike stalked off after the rigid bulk of his Sire, grumbling, "And you're just making insane turns into dark tunnels because you know _exactly_ where you're going. Right, sure! Whatever! God, this is so embarrassing. The great Angelus, tracker extraordinaire, lost in a labyrinth of seacaves. How am I ever going to live this down?"

"SHUT UP, SPIKE!!!!" Angel hollered, his booming voice bouncing off the ancient walls.

"Jesus, Angel! You wanna wake the dead?!" Spike whined, his ears ringing. He gingerly touched the delicate opening to his inner ear to check for blood from burst eardrums, grimacing dramatically. Angel graced him with an icy glare and started walking again.

The truth was, he didn't know where he was going, but Angel would rather die than let his impertinent Childe know that. He had a feeling deep in his gut he was on the right track, but he had no evidence to back up this feeling. He was following his nose without smelling the trail. 

The attack came from out of nowhere. "Look out!" Spike hollered to Angel, but it was too late. A massive claw swept out of the dark at Angel's body, intent on slicing his torso in four. 

Angel felt the movement in the air and leapt back, but he wasn't fast enough, even with his inhuman Warrior speed. The claw clipped him, throwing him violently backwards into the cave wall. Pain exploded through his human nerve endings as the unyielding rock met his body. Angel screamed. Blood was pooling under his wounded side where the claw had passed through fabric and skin.

"Angel!" Spike ran to his hurt Sire's side, feeling for the pulse that beat strongly in Angel's neck. "Oh fuck, don't die on me!"

Angel heard panic in Spike's voice. That wasn't good. If Spike panicked now, they would both die here today, and Buffy and Aurora would be at the mercy of his insane Childe and Sire. "William," he said, forcing the pain out of his voice. "Calm down. I'm fine. I'm not dying here today."

Spike sobered at the sound of his true name. He met Angel's dark eyes, his vampiric sight enhanced in the near-perfect dark, searching them for a lie. He found only determination. He found Angel. "Good. I don't want to get staked by your pretty wife for getting you killed," he quipped, trying to hide the fear and relief flooding through him.

"How touching. Would you two like to be left alone?" the heroes' demon attacker smirked, highly amused at the sight of a vampire fawning over a human.

Spike growled deep in his chest, his brow pushing forward as his canines elongated in his snarling mouth. His cerulean eyes glowed gold as his demon settled there, ready to fight. He reached inside Angel's coat, his movements hidden to the chattering demon behind him. 

Spike's fist closed around the hilt of the broadsword concealed in the folds of the material. "Feeling left out?" he said, an evil anticipation for killing something making his voice sweet and malevolent. Angel shuddered at the sound, remembering hunts past and the cruelty this blonde vampire was capable of. 

Spike focused his gaze on the demon, showing him his true face and smiled. "Let me rectify that." 

He attacked, expertly sweeping the broadsword in an upward arc that caught the demon completely unawares. It howled as the blade penetrated and separated his scaly skin. 

The blow was only meant to inflict pain, not to kill. Spike grinned, the demon under his skin cheering at the howl and stink of pain coming from his adversary. "There. Now you're part of the fun. Tell you what, let's make this even more fun. How about you shrieking like a little girl while I cut you to teeny tiny pieces?"

Angel forced the pain cascading through his side away. He pushed his feet under him and stood. The world spun a little, but came back into focus. 'I must be worse off than I thought,' he grimaced, seeing the pool of sticky red fluid at his feet. He gingerly touched the wet spot at his side. The wound wasn't oozing anymore, his body valiantly fighting to heal the damage.

The glint of steel drew Angel. His blood-coated fingers closed around the wooden handle of Spike's battle ax. Angel lifted the weapon, swinging and gripping it in familiarity, letting it become an extension of his powerful arm. "Mind if I join in?" he said, taking up his place at Spike's vulnerable right.

Seeing the darkly good looking man standing beside him, weapon hanging deceptively relaxed by his side, his immense frame equally deceptively relaxed, made a shudder of pleasure run through Spike's battle ready body. All that was missing was the feral predatory golden eyes and bared fangs identical to his own.

"You're Deh'ras, aren't you?" Angel asked, looking for confirmation of the facts he already knew. "You're the Raz'lah that's been stalking my daughter."

Deh'ras' face split in a hateful grin that revealed hooked, yellowed needlepoint teeth. "It's good you know who I am. I want my enemy, the killer of my brother, to know who will destroy all he holds dear and remove him from this plane."

"I'll take that as a yes then," Spike drawled. "These demons are always so melodramatic, don't you think? 'The killer of my brother', ooohhhh! Where do you come up with this stuff?" The more taunting Spike's tone became, the tighter Deh'ras' grin span. Angel was sure any second now his face was just going to split in two.

"You are nothing to me, little creature," Deh'ras spat, enraged. "You will know my wrath and tremble!"

Spike, being so purely Spike, rolled his eyes heavenward and, finding only the ceiling of rock above him, sighed, "See? Melodramatic. Can't you just shut up and fight already? Or are you going to talk us to death?"

The Raz'lah didn't wait to be invited twice. With a bellowing battle cry that bombarded the two Warriors from all sides, Deh'ras attacked. 

Angel briefly cursed the bleach blonde's impetuous nature, before swinging into action, swinging the battle-ax's wicked blade to meet the charging demon's powerful legs. Spike leapt into the fight with a mighty roar, wielding the broadsword with deadly grace.

Deh'ras sidestepped the incoming battle-ax, only to feel the searing pain of his scaly arm being sliced open by the impudent vampire. He turned on Spike, lashing out with his wounded arm and catching his foe against the chest with a mighty fisted claw, sending Spike bouncing off the unyielding rock wall.

"Spike!" Angel called urgently. If the vampire was knocked unconscious, they would both die here tonight, Angel knew. He still remembered his final battle with Deh'ras' brother, Mah'lak. It had taken both his ensouled and soulless vampire selves to defeat the monster. This Raz'lah was younger and stronger than Mah'lak. Angel wasn't even sure he could be defeated with Spike by his side, but without him the battle was already lost.

Spike groaned. Stars floated in front of his now-blue eyes, the pain cascading through his head down his spine and into his toes from his brutal meeting with the rock. He stumbled to his feet, only to have his knees buckle under him. 

"Spike!"

The vampire pushed himself up against the wall and forced the world to stop spinning. "Yeah," he groaned, holding his head. His inspecting fingers informed him he had a nasty gash on the back of his head that was slowly leaking blood down his neck and shirt. "I'm here. I'm up."

While Spike was stumbling around, looking for his equilibrium to return, Angel was fighting Deh'ras with everything he had. Angel, even though he was still blessed with his old vampire strength and stamina, was tiring. Blow after blow, cut after cut, and still Deh'ras kept coming. 

"Spike, now!"

The blow blindsided Angel. Never shift your attention away from a fight. That was Rule Nr. 1 and Angel just paid dearly for breaking it. He screamed at the mortal pain of having his shoulder dislocated. 

Deh'ras tried to push his advantage over the downed man. The demon lifted a massive rock high above his inhuman head, ready to bring it down on this mortal and ending his miserable existence. 

Angel kicked out with his leg, his foot landing squarely on the demon's knee. Out of nowhere, another foot landed in Deh'ras' stomach as Spike connected with a perfectly aimed kick of his own. 

Deh'ras fell.

"You alright?" Angel asked the bloodied vampire bending over him.

Spike grabbed Angel under the arm and pulled. The clipped scream the dark-haired man tried to swallow made him freeze. "I'm fine, but you're not," he said, quickly and skillfully assessing his Warrior-sire's injuries. 

"Hold on. You know the drill," Spike ordered. Angel nodded and braced himself. The loud pop echoed through the caves as Spike popped Angel's shoulder back in. "Can you fight?"

Angel's vision cleared as the pain subsided. He nodded, "Yeah, I'm g…" His velvet brown eyes shifted past Spike's worried face to the glint that caught his eye. Deh'ras was towering over them, his broadsword held high and ready to strike. 

"Spike, look out!" he screamed and pushed the vampire away from him as hard as he could, the broadsword slicing through air where Spike's blonde head was just seconds ago. 

Fire spread through Angel's body, replaced almost instantly by numbing cold. He looked down to his midsection, his eyes growing large and his skin pale. His entire stomach was cut open, blood pouring out of him in gushing rivers. Somewhere far away he heard Spike roar in rage and Deh'ras howl in pain. The world was getting dark around the edges of his vision. He was dying. Angel knew this. He could feel his heart pounding slower and slower in his chest. 

"Angel? Sire? Oh fuck!" Spike babbled, pressing down on the enormous wound quickly killing his human creator. "Don't you die! You can't die!"

"Will," Angel whispered. He wasn't capable of anything more than a whisper. "Will, tell Buffy I love her. Take care of my girls for me. Aurora…"

Spike was shaking his head in furious denial. "No! _You are not going to leave me again, you fucking wanker_!!!" 

Spike's vampire senses picked up the slow, but still present heartbeat of the man dying in his arms. He didn't think. He just reacted, and prayed to whatever gods were watching he wasn't going to regret this. With swift precision, the vampire bit down hard on Angel's neck. He didn't have to take much to get the human body empty enough of human blood. 

Then Spike opened up his own jugular and forced Angel's bloodless lips to his blood soaked throat. "Don't fight this, please. Don't leave me," he begged with the man he held tightly to him. 

Pain knifed through Spike's body when Angel latched onto the wound in his throat and drank deep. The dying man, starved, sucked hard on the fount flowing into his mouth. With a growl emanating from deep within his own chest, Angel ripped at the cut, forcing the blood imprisoned behind Spike's skin to flow freely down his greedy throat.

Spike was screaming, the terrible pain of this invasion pulling at his undead heart. "Enough," he hissed, trying to dislodge the insistent hold Angel had on him. "Angel, stop!" 

He pushed against Angel's broad chest, wailing when his skin tore even more when Angel's blunt human teeth released him. 

Angel gasped, expelling his final breath through bloodstained lips. He fell back, his heart silent and dead, never to beat again.

*************** 

In her cage, feeling very alone, Buffy sat. The pain struck. The elder Slayer doubled over, grabbing her breast, clawing frantically at her heart. She gasped, sinking to her knees. 

"Mom!" Aurora was by her mother's side and holding her, not knowing what was going on and terrified because of it. "Mom, tell me, what's wrong?"

"Angel," Buffy uttered on a harshly expelled breath. Her soul knew her husband, her soul mate, had died.

From above them, a joyous wail, a sound of pure pain and pure delight, resounded. Drusilla was dancing, swaying to the visions in her head. "Daddy," she lilted. "Daddy's coming home." 


	12. Aurora Chapter 11

Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

** **

Spike sat in the dark, rocking back and forth, just watching the dead body lying across from him."Oh God, what have I done?" he repeatedly whispered under his breath, waiting for his Sire to arise a vampire once again.

He rocked and chewed his thumb, waiting, not knowing who or what would awaken soon.Would it be Angel?Or had he just resurrected Angelus?

Spike couldn't wait anymore.He bounded to his feet and took his place over the still form, a stake clenched tightly in his hand."I'm sorry," he said, the plea no more than a breath, and brought the stake down to impale the silent heart.

A cold hand halted the stake mere inches from its intended target.Spike gasped, not wanting to cry out as the pain shot up his wrist.He could hear the small fragile bones snapping like dry twigs under the crushing force of the undead fingers circling his wrist.

The chipped vampire felt eyes on him and met the burning gaze of his Childe newly awakened.He was mortally afraid at what he saw in the black depths of his Childe, his Sire.Spike had never wanted to run from anyone as much as he wanted to run right now.

*************** 

Time was running out.Buffy could feel it slipping away.She was fighting a loosing battle against the tears threatening to turn her into a blubbering mess.

Aurora was frantic.She couldn't understand what was going on with her mother.Something terrible had happened and it involved her father, but every time she asks, this stricken look enters her mother's hazel eyes and she turns away.

"Mom, please," she begged, close to tears herself."What's wrong?What happened?Tell me!"

Buffy looked at her daughter, her dark eyes so worried, so young and innocent, so much like her father's.The tears collected in Buffy's eyes, making Aurora's face swim in front of her.She turned away, rubbing furiously at the salty droplets creeping across her flushed cheeks."It's…"

A loud crash from above them cut Buffy off in mid-lie.Drusilla's cry of pain echoed down to the captive audience.Another crash, followed by Riley's bellowing roar, sounded.Darla's shrill voice drifted down the stairs, "Never again, Riley!Do I make myself perfectly understood?Never!You threaten Dru again and I will stake you myself!"

Drusilla was weeping miserably.Riley was stomping around in a fury, shouting at the top of his lungs at Darla, "You think you scare me?!I would welcome a stake through the heart if it would stop her incessant yammering about that thorn in my side!He is not a god!He isn't even a demon anymore!He's a flesh and blood human, but still you obsess about him!Both of you!I am so sick to death of competing with that fuck!God, I need to kill something!I think I'll start with the pretty baby Slayer."

"No!" Drusilla cried out through her tears."You can't have the Slayers!Grandmummy, please!We need them for the party.Little birdies screaming for a feast…"

"You bitch!" Riley snapped, advancing on the cowering vampire on the floor."You would deny me?Still, you would deny me?"

Darla stepped into the furious vampire's path."Take the Watcher.Kill him, torture him, I don't care," she hissed in a rage at having her family threatened by this fledgling."Touch the Slayers and deal with me."Her voice dropped into a deep growl as she vamped out.

Riley thought better of testing the elder female vampire, turning on his heel and storming off to get his consolation prize, grumbling under his breath that he will have his due.

The Slayers watched Riley's approach warily.The vampire was not in the greatest of moods, that much they gathered from the extremely loud conversation they overheard mere moments before and the black scowl contorting his vampire features even further.

Without a word to either of the women, Riley yanked open the cage door, grabbed Nate by the hair and started to drag his screaming, struggling carcass out after him.

Aurora flew at her enemy, screaming, "No!You can't have him!"Her tiny fist landed against Riley's jaw, making his head snap back under the preternatural force.

The vampire turned his glowering yellow eyes on the battle-ready Slayer and snarled, showing her his dripping fangs.His hand shot out, grabbing Aurora by her exposed throat and dragged her to him in one jerk of his arm."You're daddy's whores won't keep you safe from me for long.Soon you'll beg me to kill you, little girl!" he growled, bathing Aurora's face in his hot, fetid breath before flinging her away from him.

The cage rattled as Aurora's body connected with the bars.Buffy was at her daughter's side, running her hands over the fast-bruising skin of Aurora's face."Aurora?Baby?Talk to Mommy," she cooed, fear sneaking into her voice.

Riley's cruel laughter made Buffy's head snap up to meet the once-kind blue eyes that were now filled with malice and hate."Touch her again, you son of a bitch, and you'll be the one begging," she promised, her daughter held protectively against her breast.

Riley just laughed, dragging his toy with him out of the cage and up the stairs.

"Oh God, please don't kill me!" Nate was begging Riley, cowering away from his captor as far as he could.Riley towered over the shaking, sobbing form of the Watcher at his feet, grinning mercilessly as he shifted the red hot poker between his long fingers.

"I'm begging you, please!Don't kill me!I'll give you anything you want!ANYTHING!!!"Nate's voice rose to a falsetto squeak, tears streaking down his reddened cheeks, his eyes locked in terror on the hot metal in Riley's hand.

"Anything?" Riley asked, his eternally handsome face splitting into a leering grin.

Nate looked up at the grinning vampire, hope jumping in his gut."Yes!Yes!Anything!" he cried.Maybe he would get out of this with his skin intact, the Watcher thought feverishly.

Riley knelt down, regarding the weeping man intently.'Oh yes,' he knew.'This man would sell his own mother to save himself.But would he sell what I want?'Riley decided to put it to the test.

"I want the Slayer.I want Buffy Summers."

Nate gasped with relief.For an instant he thought he would have to choose between himself and his charge, but if this soulless demon wanted the mother, he could have her."Fine!Yes!Take her.She's yours!"

"I'm pretty sure her little brat won't like it if I take her bitch mommy like I took her Watcher," Riley commented.

Nate almost jumped to reassure his tormentor."I'm her Watcher.She'll do as I say.You don't have to worry."

Riley snorted at the flushed man's ignorant statement."Really?If you believe that, you're more worthless than I thought."

He raised his hand, the poker glowing hot red as the air rushed past its overheated tip.Nate followed the arc of the poker with eyes sparred wide open with panic."Drugs!!" he screamed franticly, his crotch darkening as his bladder betrayed him for a second time. "I could drug her!She wouldn't be a problem."

Riley halted his hand a hair's breadth from the sobbing Watcher's unprotected eye and smiled a pleased smile."Good thinking, little man, but I don't think Mommy would just stand by and watch her baby bitch get drugged.She would probably kill you, me and everyone else here.Think of another plan."

The poker sizzled and Nate's bellows of stark terror and intense pain filled the house like sweet music as his watchful Watcher-eye cooked in its socket.

"Drug them both," the Watcher mouthed.He had no oxygen left in his lungs and the fire eating its way through his face up into his brain and down into his toes was robbing him of what little voice he had left.

Of course, Riley had already thought of that. He was never stupid, not even when he was a human fighting on the side of good.He just wanted to hear the begging man scream.He loved making fragile things scream.Plus now he had a much bigger bargaining chip to ensure the Watcher's full cooperation.He could do as Riley ordered and have only suffered the loss of an eye, or he could be defiant and loose his life piece by agonizing piece.

As Riley explained to his new puppet what he wanted, Nate nodded dejectedly.He didn't want to hurt the girl under his care, but if the death of her mother would keep him alive one second longer, he would do whatever is necessary to have that one second.

Two minions carried-dragged the half-unconscious body of Aurora's Watcher back to humans' prison.Aurora, pacing the small floor of the cage like a frustrated jungle cat, sped to the door.Her heart screamed in fury at the sight of the horror his face had become.

Buffy was keeping a close eye on the two minions still standing outside their cage.Why aren't they leaving, the elder Slayer wondered suspiciously.She got her answer when Aurora yelped behind her.

Buffy's eyes fell on her daughter's slumped body on the floor."Aurora!" she called in a panic.Then she saw the needle in Nate's hand."What did you do?" she asked, hate and pure fury raging through her powerful body.

Nate didn't answer.He just looked miserable, his bloodied and swollen face a mask of sorrow.

"What the fuck did you do?!" Buffy demanded, slamming the badly beaten man against the bars, eliciting a hoarse cry of pain from his split lips.

Nate turned his remaining eye on the small woman whose hand around his throat could snap his neck with a mere flick of her wrist and whispered, "I'm sorry."

Buffy felt the two minions behind her.She turned to confront them and protect her unconscious daughter when she felt a prick in her neck.Suddenly the world swam out of focus and the night fell behind her eyes as the drug from Nate's second needle took effect.

When the world swam back into painful, throbbing focus, Buffy found herself pinned down.Again.'Didn't we do this already?' she thought sluggishly.

"Finally.I thought Slayers had accelerated healing ability.I guess that doesn't count for horse tranquilizers."

Riley's voice snapped Buffy to full alertness.She scanned her surroundings as much as she was able to from her precarious position on the hard slab table.She wasn't in the dungeon anymore.The cage, Aurora and Acathla was nowhere to be seen.

In fact, there was nothing to see.The walls were bare except for… Buffy's heart jumped when she saw the blood splattered walls and the strategically placed chains hanging from the walls.Someone was whipped here to within an inch of his or her life, Buffy knew and had to suppress a chill chasing up her spine.

"Oh, don't worry," Riley said conversationally, noticing Buffy noticing the chains and the blood."We have plenty of time.You'll get to try out all of my toys."

Buffy followed the vampire's gaze and had to suppress another chill when she laid her eyes on Riley's 'toys'.Each implement was shiny and sharp.Some had cruel teeth or hooks, others wicked points and barbs.All of them were meant to inflict unbelievable agony.

Then her eyes fell on Riley's pride and joy.The whip had seven short braided leather lashes with metal hooks braided into the lashes.The whip was meant to rip the flesh off the body wherever it struck.And judging by the dark rich color of the leather, this particular toy has been used a lot.

Buffy couldn't help herself.She gulped.

Riley laughed happily.The stench of fear radiating off this woman was like ambrosia to him.This was going to be fun, he thought, mentally rubbing his hands in anticipation.

It was 1 hour until midnight, and the Night of Argonius.


	13. Aurora Chapter 12

Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

** **

"It's almost midnight.We should get our guest of honor ready," Darla said.She didn't know where Drusilla's whelp was, and she didn't much care.She was enjoying the peace.I should consider organizing an accident for the boy, she thought, making a mental note of Riley's imminent demise.

Drusilla flowed into the living room, black velvet swishing around her long, perfectly shaped legs."I bought a new dress for the party.Do you like it, Grandmummy?"

"You look wonderful, my dear."

Drusilla graced Darla with a radiant smile and asked, "Where's my boy?"

Darla's smile froze at the mention of the demon farmboy."I don't know.Off playing with his toys would be my guess."

Drusilla smiled, "My boy likes his toys."

The blonde master vampire snorted, rising gracefully to her feet and clapping her hands sharply.A minion appeared in the doorway, not meeting his mistress's eyes."It's time," she said briskly."Fetch the Slayer."

"Immediately, Mistress.It will be done," the minion mumbled humbly and left quickly to do Darla's bidding.

The minion and two of his lackeys descended to the dungeon, none too happy with the task they'd been given.They have never faced this Slayer, but enough of their kin had died at her hand for them to fear her.

The sight that greeted them was not one they expected or dared hope for.The Slayer, Aurora, was lying on the cold stone floor, unconscious, and the mother Slayer was nowhere to be seen.The Watcher was weeping softly, his eyes leaking a mixture of tears, pus and blood.

"Quickly!" the head minion ordered his two companions."Get the girl!"

Nate merely sat and watched as the vampires lifted Aurora's body and carry it out of the cage, weeping soundlessly.

"The Slayer, Mistress," the head minion announced proudly.Darla turned, surprised.

"You're still alive," she said, impressed."I was sure the girl would reduce you to dust in the blink of an eye.And you knocked her unconscious.Now I am impressed."

"Oh no, Mistress, she was already unconscious when we got there," the minion corrected, choosing honesty over flattery.He would rather be honest than take undue credit for something he didn't do and be punished for it later.

Darla frowned."She was already…?What about the other Slayer?I seriously doubt she would sit idly by as someone attacked her precious offspring.

"There was no sign of her, Mistress.The Slayer's mother wasn't there."If the minion had a heartbeat, it would be pounding against his chest painfully.In stead, he swallowed hard.

"What do you mean there was no sign of her?Where the hell is she then?!" Darla screamed.The minion tried to say something, anything that would get him out of this with his unlife intact, but his throat locked up, denying all sound from leaving his parched mouth.He squeaked and gargled when the elder, more powerful vampire gripped and squeezed the tender flesh of his neck.His tortured bleats ceased abruptly when Darla effortlessly twisted his head off his neck, watching with satisfaction as the minion burst into dust.

"Find the Slayer, or you will share his fate," Darla hissed at the remaining minions.They scrambled wildly to get away from Darla before she changed her mind and dusted them as well.

*************** 

Buffy wouldn't scream.Her face was contorted in pain from the fresh blow to her already bruised body, but still she uttered no sound.

Riley had brutally beaten the Slayer, his former girlfriend, with a wooden club.He hadn't broken her skin.Not once.Each time the club smacked into her soft flesh, forcing a hiss or gasp from her, the vampire laughed, licking his lips and readied the club for the next swing.

"It'll be better if you just scream," Riley told the silently weeping Slayer."If you scream, the beatings will stop."

"Fuck you," Buffy hissed furiously.It hurt to breathe and Buffy was tired, but she knew this was only the beginning.God knows what this insane creature would do if she did give in and scream.

"Insolent to the last," Riley sneered."That was the one thing about you I really hated.Only difference is now I get to beat it out of you like I always wanted."He punctuated his statement with another bone crunching hit to Buffy's midsection.

Buffy sobbed, swallowing the scream bubbling to her bloodied lips."You'll pay for this," she promised, coughing up dark blood, wincing as the terrible pain knifed through her anguished body.

"Who will make me pay?" Riley asked."Your daughter?She's as good as dead herself.What about your husband?Oh wait!He is dead!There's nobody left to save you, Buffy!Nobody!"

Buffy screamed finally as the club crashed onto her shoulder, her arm tied to the stone slab twisting her shoulder into a more vulnerable angle and intensifying the pain of the blow.

Riley whooped his pleasure at the tortured sound leaving his prisoner's body, covering the sound of the low growl behind him.

"Don't you feel better now, my sweet?" Riley jeered.

Before Buffy could muster up the needed energy for any kind of answer, Riley yelped and she watched as the vampire flew across the dungeon, crashing into the opposite rock face wall.

"I do feel better, thank you," Angel growled, his eyes golden.His upper lip was curled up into a snarl, showing his elongated fangs.Slowly, his tongue stole over the sharp points, and he grinned, pulling his angelic demon features into a mask of death.

Spike was at the tied Slayer's side, freeing her and trying to block her view as much as possible with his body."It'll be alright, pet," he kept saying over and over, picking her up off the slab and carrying her from the cavern.

"Spike?What's going on?Angel?!Oh God, it hurts!" Buffy sobbed with each jarring step the blonde vampire took.

"Shhh, pet.It'll be alright," Spike soothed, not wanting to think of the monster that was this broken woman's husband, or what she would do to him, Spike, for loosing the demon on the world.

Angel advanced on Riley's huddled form, growling deep in his chest."You think you can touch what is mine and get away with it, boy?!I will teach you to keep your hands off my property once and for all!"

"Am I supposed to be scared?You're nothing, old man!" Riley spat at his nemesis, hate coursing through his veins like fire.

Riley leapt at Angel, the club still locked in his hand, and swung the weapon at him.Angel was ready for the attacking demon and flipped him easily, sending Riley flying into the walls again.

With a deafening roar, Riley vamped out and launched himself at Angel again, kicking and punching.His military training served him well in any battle situation, but against the Slayer's demonic husband it was all but ineffectual.Every kick and punch Angel blocked, followed by very hard, very painful blows and kicks of his own.

Angel was reveling in his newfound strength, tenfold what it was when he was a human with vampiric strength.Just think what kind of vampire my Buffy would make, he thought after snapping Riley's head back with a solid punch to the jaw.

The thought of the Slayer who wore his ring and bore his child opened his ears to her cries coming from somewhere close by."Buffy," he snarled, murder in his voice and turned his golden eyes to the bleeding vampire lying at his feet in a semi-conscious mess.

"You stole her.You hurt her.Now you'll pay."

Riley looked up at the immense figure looming over him, his blue eyes swelling fast.Angel grabbed Riley by the ears, getting a good grip and making sure the boy screamed when the skin started to tear.Then he twisted.Hard.

Riley's head popped off like an undead grape, a cry dying on his lips as his body and his bodiless head turned to dust.

Angel turned and strolled out of the torture chamber, shaking vamp dust off his hands and licking his lips and fangs.

Buffy screamed again when Spike popped her dislocated shoulder back into its socket."What happened, Spike?" she asked for the hundredth time."Where's Angel?He's dead, isn't he?Tell me, damn it!"

"Buffy…," Spike started, uncertain how to tell her what she wanted to know.At least she's not strong enough at the moment to dust me, he thought wryly.

"Angel!" Buffy yelled, pushing Spike out of the way and leaping into her dark husband's waiting embrace.

"Buffy!No!" Spike cried, trying to stop her before it was too late.

But it was already too late.Angel had his fangs in the Slayer's throat and was eagerly gulping down the hot elixir of her blood.

"Stop it!You'll kill her!"Spike tried to pull the vampire he just made, the vampire who made him, away from the weakened woman, but the Slayer's blood was powerful and it fed Angel's already increased strength.

Angel merely swiped the bleach blonde away, as if he was an annoying knat.He felt Buffy's heart slow and withdrew his fangs from her bruised neck, ripping open his shirt and tearing at the flesh, letting the blood run free.Buffy's glazed eyes locked on the flowing red liquid and her lips followed soon after.

"NO!" Spike cried, storming at the couple locked in their deadly embrace of blood."What do you think you're doing?!"

"Shut up, Spike" Angel growled savagely, lacing his fingers into Buffy's golden locks, pulling her sucking mouth closer to the wound she was so eagerly drinking from."I know what I'm doing."

Suddenly, Buffy let go of Angel, her cries of renewed pain filling the caverns.She fell to the ground, shaking uncontrollably, clutching at herself.

Then she went quiet.Her body was perfectly still.Not even the rise and fall of her chest marred the illusion of immobility.

Her eyes opened.

"Oh God, what have you done?" Spike breathed, sinking to his knees as the strength and the will to remain upright left his body.


	14. Aurora Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Aurora shivered, her skin prickling with goose flesh as the cold leeched into her near-naked body.  She groaned and tried to shake off the after-effects of the drug her Watcher had forced into her.  

A single tear slowly rolled free from her dark lashes.

"Why the tears, my dear?" Darla asked, sounding pleased at seeing the young girl's despair.  "Scared of dying?  Or just beyond hope?"

Aurora bit back a remark, knowing it's exactly what the vampire wanted.  She wouldn't give this bitch the satisfaction of showing her that she, Aurora, daughter of the greatest Warriors in service to the Powers, was scared.  She took a deep, steadying breath and said, "If you're going to kill me, I suggest you get on with it."

"In such a hurry to die.  It's a pity actually.  It would have been interesting to see if you had your father's talent for pain."

"Why don't you unlock these chains, and I'll show you my talent for pain," Aurora challenged, hate for the blonde vampire making her voice hard and cruel.

Darla growled, her vampire countenance shifting into place.  Her clawed hand flew out at the helpless girl, but stopped bare inches from Aurora's throat.  "Sorry, Slayer.  You won't get off so easily.  You will still be alive long enough to see Hell swallow your world."

"Grandmummy?  It's time," Drusilla lilted from the shadows.  She glided to the stone altar, the velvet of her dress flowing gracefully around her preternaturally beautiful legs.  "He screams.  He screams for blood."

"It's blood he wants.  It's blood he shall have."  Darla clapped her hands sharply, bringing her minions to attention before her.  "The Night of Argonius is upon us!  Our time is finally at hand!  Let us ready the sacrifice and welcome chaos!"

With loud hoots and hollers from the vampire foot soldiers, the altar was lifted and carried to stand at the feet of Acathla.  Small pinpricks of light sprung up throughout the chamber as hundreds of candles were lit, making the shadows dance ominously.

Darla grabbed one of the minions by the hair and demanded, "Where's Deh'ras?"

"I…. I don't know, Mistress," the terrified minion stammered.  

"Find him," Darla ordered, pushing the shaking vampire away from her.  The minion stumbled over herself to get away from her creator and do as she was told.

"The demon won't come to our party," Dru offered matter-of-factly.

Darla eyed her askance, "Why is that, Dru?"

Dru cocked her head, listening intently to something only audible to her and smiled enigmatically, "He lost the game.  My boy was always good at games."

"Riley killed him?" Darla said, amazed.  She felt ridiculous even saying the words.  The demon farmboy (who was also missing, she noted) thought himself a bigger bad than he truly was, in Darla's humble opinion.

Dru's tinkling giggle dispelled Darla's thoughts.  "Not Riley," Dru smiled, spinning around and around, letting her dress bell out around her legs.  "My beautiful, vicious Spike.  Do you think he'll come back to me?  It's been so long…"

A worried frown creased Darla's brow.  Even with the Slayer and her traitorous Angel out of the way, their plans can still go awry if that bleach blonde grandchilde of hers decided to interfere.

"Let's get this started," Darla said, her voice slightly higher than normal. 

*************** 

The Slayer's eyes locked on her demon husband.  A low guttural growl emanated from deep within her heaving chest and she leapt at the vampire, knocking him to the ground, straddling his waist.  Furiously, she devoured his mouth, drawing blood and bringing forth a growl from his own chest in return.

The kiss ended and the grinning, bloodied couple turned their eyes on the whimpering vampire rocking himself back and forth on the floor.  "Spike," they said in unison.  

The vampire lifted his tearstained eyes to his Sire (his Childe, his mind reminded) and the Slayer.  The fury flooded through his being, forcing the demon within him to the fore.  He attacked, his hands clawing at Angel's face, knocking Buffy away from the object of his hate.

Angel flew to his feet, taking the insane demon beast with him.  "I would be very careful if I were you, boy," he warned, his voice low and dangerous.  His powerful hands were holding off the blonde vampire's attacks easily.

"You get no more chances, Angelus!" Spike spat at the tall, broad-shouldered vampire.  "This time you die, and you're going to stay dead!"

Then Spike was flying through the air, crashing painfully into the wall.  "You stay the hell away from my husband!" Buffy screamed, her small fists balled and ready to tear him limb from limb.

A scream echoing through the tunnels stopped the crazed blonde vampire from attacking the battle-ready couple.

"Aurora!" he cried, the battle raging in him between saving his love and destroying the primal force blocking his way clearly showing on his finely cut features.

Spike tensed, ready to spring, when Angel started to move towards him.  The dark-haired 200-pound vampire allowed his human features to return, and he held up his hands in a defensive non-threatening manner.  This did not help to calm Spike much.  He knew better than to trust this particularly vicious and treacherous vampire.

"Spike," Angel spoke quietly, trying to bring his Childe under control.  "I don't know what's gotten into you, but my baby girl is in trouble.  We need you."

Spike eyed his approaching opponent suspiciously.  Angelus always had the talent to charm anyone with a gentle voice.  "I won't let you get near Aurora, you soulless bastard!" he hissed.  "Not you or your demon whore!"

The penny dropped.  "Spike, no," Angel said.  "I'm still me, Angel.  Angelus is dead.  Forever."

A frustrated roar erupted from the Slayer, whom the two vampires forgot about.  "God!  Enough!  I'm going to find my daughter before it's too late.  You two old women stay here and talk all night!"  

"Buffy, no!" Angel shouted after the disappearing form of his wife.  "If anything happens to her… to either of them, because of your idiocy," the dark-haired vampire growled, his eyes flashing golden fire at Spike.  "You will wish Angelus was still alive.  He would have had more mercy on you."

*************** 

Aurora screamed when the red-hot metal brand touched her exposed abdomen.  Her flesh sizzled, the smell of her own skin cooking making her gag.

The ritual of Argonius was anything but easy, and Aurora would be lucky to make it until the actual sacrifice, but Darla was enjoying the Slayer's screams of terror and pain too much to care.  

The girl, now marked with the Blessing of Argonius, would have to endure having the ritualistic words needed to call forth Acathla carved into her body by the same knife that will, in the end, remove her still-beating heart from her chest.

"Lie still, dear," Darla was cooing, licking her lips at the pungent aroma of fear and blood.  "If you keep hitching your breath in like that, my writing will be all crooked."

Aurora followed the devilishly sharp point of the dagger, tears streaming from her near-black eyes.  She tried to struggle, to get away from the torture to be visited upon her unblemished skin, but to no avail.  Her restraints were unbreakable and unyielding.  She had nowhere to go and no one to help her.  She, the Slayer, was helpless.

Another scream pushed past Aurora's lips as Darla pushed the blade into Aurora's breast and started to form letters bathed in her blood. 


	15. Aurora Chapter 14

****

Chapter 14

Buffy ran, a blur storming down ancient hallways carved by nature. Her maternal need to protect her child forced the adrenaline and intoxicatingly powerful blood from her demon husband faster through her veins. Her ears picked up every anguished scream echoing through the tunnels, becoming louder as she chased the sound to its source.

The elder Slayer was brought to a halt when the tunnel came to an abrupt stop. An immense boulder covered the entrance to the chamber where her daughter was slowly being tortured to death. 

A troop of demons and vampire guards raised their weapons, ready to defend the blocked doorway from the intruder. Buffy quickly sized up her opponents, mentally calculating plans of attack. She was outnumbered 10 to her 1, but she'd faced greater odds before and won. 

This time, however, speed was crucial and the Slayer realized that every second she wasted cutting down the obstacles in her path was bringing her only child closer to death. 'And the Apocalypse,' she reminded herself. 'Can't forget about saving the world too.'

Buffy flew into battle unarmed, but quickly rectified that weakness by disarming the first demon she could lay her deadly hands on. The other nine guards pounced on her in unison, trying to overwhelm her with sheer numbers, but the Slayer cut, kicked, punched and clawed through the mass with unstoppable force. 

As the blood flowed and the screams filled the small space, the fire in Buffy's blood burned hot, radiating from her golden, not-quite-human eyes, and fueled her on into more powerful and furious attack.

But the demons kept coming. Nine became twelve, became twenty. Where one fell, two and then three took his place. Time was running out. 

Buffy howled in frustration, swinging her tiny fist at the next attacking vampire, only to make contact with dust-filled air. Through the cloud of exploding vampire, her husband came into view. His burning vampire eyes met her golden Super Slayer gaze. 

The unnatural power flowing between the two Warriors cast shadows of doubt over the demon hordes. "Kill them!" the leader of the foot soldiers cried, trying to fuel his own warriors into a fighting frenzy strong enough to hold off the intimidating vampire and the deceptively small woman. 

The band of demon soldiers attacked, not really sure if they wanted to continue this insane battle or flee before they join their fallen comrades. Angel and Buffy cut a bloody path through them like they weren't even there. 

When a third vampire joined against the battling (dying) demons, the few who remained ran for their lives, led by the leader who, just moments ago, was urging them on into battle.

Another scream filtered past the rock jammed into the tunnel opening. 

"Aurora!" Buffy cried, slamming her fist against the unyielding rock separating her from her child. The rock shook, raining tiny pieces of cave wall down on the three Warriors.

Buffy looked at the imprint her fist left on the granite face, pulled back and hit it again with deliberate intent. A small crack appeared. 

Angel took up position next to his wife. "Together," he said to her, his own fist at the ready.

Spike watched in awe as the Slayer and her newly turned husband crashed their fists into the boulder, shaking the walls and sending a tremor through the floor and up the vampire's legs. 

The tremor echoed through the candle-lit cavern, halting Darla's dripping blade inches from the captured Slayer's bloody skin.

Aurora opened her eyes, pain hazing her vision. "They're going to break through! Cover the entrance!" Darla was shouting at her minions and pointing to the shaking, cracking rock. 

'Mom?' Aurora thought, wincing as her heart sped up and fed the fire that covered every inch of her split skin. She hitched a breath and screamed, "MOM! DAD! HELP ME!"

The rock crumbled, as if bowing to the tormented wail issued by the young girl. 

"Get away from her," a dark, dangerous voice said through the settling dust. Angel stepped into the room, his eyes burning golden fire, his elongated canines catching the light from the candles. Beside him stood his wife, radiant with an air of violence surrounding her. Buffy's eyes glowed the same golden fire as those of her mate and her hands were hooked into claws, battle-ready.

"Kill them!" Darla ordered harshly, fear chasing a brief shadow across her finely cut features. The minions attacked en masse, drowning the superhuman couple in swinging arms, legs and biting teeth.

"Mom!!! No!!!" Aurora cried, straining against the chains holding her trapped, forgetting the pain rushing across her abused body. 

Buffy looked up at her daughter, her fist disappearing into the chest of the vampire in front of her and ripping out his heart. Catching her husband's eye, Angel nodded. 

The elder Slayer leapt into a run when yet another minion pulled her back forcefully. With a animalistic roar, she turned to her attacker, who was fast being choked by their bleach-blonde companion. 

"What are you waiting for, Slayer?" Spike growled, struggling to hold onto the squirming vampire in his arms. "Go get her, dammit!"

Buffy didn't wait for another invitation. She turned and jumped with feline grace, launching herself at Darla, who was raising the dagger, ready to plunge it into Aurora's heart.

The Slayer's heel connected with Darla's exposed ribcage, sending the master vampire skidding across the floor. The dagger flew from her hands into the shadows.

"Mom!" Aurora sobbed, overjoyed.

"It's okay, baby. Nobody will hurt you anymore," Buffy promised, touching her daughter's tear and bloodstained cheek. With strength far beyond that of either Slayer or vampire, Buffy broke the chains holding down her daughter.

Aurora threw her arms around her mother's neck, shaking as the sobs wracked her tiny body. Buffy hugged her close, feeling the strong heartbeat pounding against her breast.

Aurora opened her eyes to look at her mother, but in stead saw the shadow of death descending on them. 

Buffy felt the younger Slayer's heart begin to race and the muscles under her hands bunch in readiness for attack, but before she could react, Aurora pushed her aside and launched herself at Drusilla.

"Aurora no!" Buffy called, as Drusilla tossed the weakened Slayer aside like one of her rag dolls.

Spike saw his old mate leap at Aurora, fangs bared. He crossed the room in the blink of an eye, closing his hand in Drusilla's raven black hair and pulling her away from the wounded girl on the floor.

"No!" Drusilla cried whiningly.

"Sorry, pet. I can't let you have her," Spike said into the darkly beautiful vampire's ear.

Drusilla turned to Spike, her features shifting back to hide the demon within. Her black eyes hungered for the blonde man in front of her. She stroked his cheek with her deathly pale fingers, sending a shiver of forgotten pleasure up Spike's spine.

"My Spike…" she breathed. "Can you really kill me?" 

Her lips moved a hair's breadth from Spike's own. He swallowed, wanting so much to kiss those enticing lips, wanting to taste this creature on his tongue once again.

"She's a mortal," Drusilla continued, her voice hypnotic. "She was meant to die at our hands. Let me kill her, Spike. Drink her blood from my hands and come back to me."

Drusilla's lips touched Spike's, warming into a deep kiss carrying all the history between these two immortal creatures. Drusilla gasped.

"I'm sorry," Spike whispered, his unbeating heart breaking as his blood cried out to the woman turning to dust in front of his weeping eyes, the stake desperately clutched in his hand.

His knees buckled underneath him and the vampire crumbled to the floor, his face a mask of pain and loss. Aurora crawled to Spike and put her arms around his shaking shoulders, hugging him. She couldn't understand the anguish her beloved was feeling. She just knew that he killed a part of himself for her and that he was hurting.

Spike held onto Aurora, letting himself be rocked by the warm, mortal woman, her heartbeat soothing the aching in his blood.

"How precious," Darla spat, circling the elder Slayer. "That whelp was always a disappointment. Why Angelus didn't just kill him, I will never understand."

"One down, one to go," Buffy sneered back at her adversary. "I have a promise to keep, Darla. This time I am going to take great pleasure in killing you myself."

Darla roared, her demon glaring back at this much-hated Slayer with yellow eyes. She attacked with fists flying and feet kicking, but her ageless strength was nothing compared to the combined power of Slayer and vampire blood flowing through Buffy's veins.

Darla's fist drove into Buffy's jaw, whipping her head back. The Slayer allowed the blow's momentum to turn her body and she brought her boot up into a spin kick with enough force to lift the blonde female vampire off her feet. 

Buffy sprang at Darla, bringing her foot down and cracking the stone floor where Darla's head was a split second ago. 

Darla leapt to her feet and kicked at the Slayer, only to have her leg caught deftly between Buffy's body and immovable arm. Buffy brought her fist down onto Darla's knee, forcing it to bend the other way. Darla howled!

Buffy let go of the vampire's broken leg, pouncing on the vampire's falling body. "Time to go back to hell, Darla," Buffy snarled, her eyes golden and inhuman. The Slayer thrust the stake into Darla's chest, piercing her heart and burying it in the stone beneath her dissolving body.

Buffy rose, looking for her husband. She saw him at the same time as Spike and Aurora. In unison they all cried, "NO!!!"

Angel pulled the sword from Acathla, his hand dripping with blood. Acathla awakened and took a breath.


	16. Aurora Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Buffy ran to her husband, covering the distance in a heartbeat.  

"What have you done?!" she cried, the pain of betrayal resounding in her voice.

Angel looked at his wife's tearstained face, gently took her hand and placed the sword into her palm.  "Trust me," he begged in a near-whisper.  "Do it."

Buffy looked confused, her fingers closing around the hilt of the sword.  The memories crowded into her mind, battling for domination.  It was like the past and present overlapping in front of her eyes, seeing a younger, more innocent version of herself standing in her place.  She saw then-Buffy kissing her beloved.  She saw her past self whispering a choked-off apology and then she was drowning again in the pain and fear of those dark soulful eyes as she drove that long ago sword through Angel.  

"Angel…" she said breathlessly, begging him not to make her do this.  Not again.  

"Do it, Buffy.  Trust me.  I love you and nothing will ever separate us again.  I will come back to you.,"  Angel lifted Buffy's numb hand, lifting the sword.  "Now do it.  Quickly."

"I love you," Buffy said, the depth of that simple statement mirrored in her hazel eyes.  She drove the sword through her husband's body for a second time and watching him disappearing into a vortex leading to unending torture.

Buffy crumbled into herself, weeping inconsolably.  She only vaguely registered her daughter's fists pummeling her.  

"What did you do?!  You killed him!  You killed my father!"  Aurora's angry grief-stricken words sounded a million miles away.

Spike dragged the young Slayer away from the shaking tiny body on the floor.  "No, pet," he was saying.  "Stop.  Your mum had no choice.  Your dad knows what he's doing.  He'll be back."

Aurora turned on the vampire, whose heart was torn between comforting the young heartbroken girl in his arms or the older heartbroken woman sobbing on the cold stone floor.  

"My father is never coming back!" Aurora screamed.  "He's dead and she's responsible!"

"Well, that's never stopped him before," Spike quipped, instantly regretting his words when the flash of agony crossed the young Slayer's face.  There was still so much she didn't know or understand about her own bloodline, it would be impossible for her to understand this now.  'When I don't even understand myself,' Spike thought to himself.

"He'll be back," Buffy said softly.  She swallowed her tears and stood.  "He said he'll be back and he will."  She was desperately trying to convince herself and pleading with Spike soundlessly to give her argument conviction, to lessen the guilt and grief she felt over what she had just done.  'Again,' her inner voice taunted.  'What you had just done again.'

****************

Angel was being whipped by winds from all sides.  He's done this before, and had to focus all his concentration to get where he needed to, but the pain radiating from his gut and the ache in his soul from being ripped from his world and his love was making it very hard.  "And these winds aren't helping much either," he said aloud.

He knew what he had to do.  Somehow he had to mentally still the interdimensional winds and then redirect them to send him to the dimension where Acathla's corporeal form lived.  But to accomplish all this before he was quite literally torn to the four winds, he had to concentrate.  

Angel took a breath and, closing his eyes, banished all thoughts of his wife and daughter who he had left behind without any explanation at all.  'God!  Buffy must be dying inside!' he thought, his heart aching.

"No!  Concentrate!" the vampire admonished himself and tried again to clear his thoughts from all the images demanding his attention.

With sheer force of will he reached out to the hurricane around him and ordered it to be calm.  The wind dropped with stops and starts as his concentration faltered and returned until, at last, it was dead quiet.  Angel was sweating and breathed hard.  

'If I still had a heartbeat, it would be thundering right now,' he thought, catching his breath.

Again, Angel closed his eyes and listened.  Silence assaulted his ears, but he wasn't listening to the quiet outside him.  He was totally focused on the whisper in his blood that was slowly building to an ear-splitting scream as his entire being honed in on Acathla.

The wind started howling again, pulling and pushing at Angel.  He flew through Oblivion to a destination of his choosing; not knowing what he would find when he finally reached it.  

"I'm coming for you, and this time you'll stay dead," Angel promised the wind, willing himself to greater speeds through the perpetual night. 

*************** 

"I'm going after him," Buffy said determinedly.  

She looked at the blood still covering her hand from the last few battles and at the sword once again protruding from Acathla's stone body.  She grasped the hilt and pulled with all her might, but the only thing that moved was her when a magickal force flung her backwards.

Buffy grunted as she climbed back to her feet.  She wiped her numb hand on her pants and, with the dagger lying at Acathla's feet, opened her palm.  Again she tried to pull the sword from the stone and again she was flung across the room.

"Argh!  Why won't it work?" the Slayer cried frustratedly, completely ignoring her deathly pale daughter begging her to stop.  

Aurora felt woozy and the feeling was getting worse.  She lost a lot of blood, the young Slayer knew, but she had to hold on.  Her mother was acting crazy and somehow she had to stop her from leaving her all alone.  'She may have murdered my father, but she's all I have left,' she thought miserably.

Spike grabbed Buffy by the arms and yelled, "Stop it, Slayer!  There's nothing you can do!"

"I have his blood in my veins.  Why won't it open for me?" Buffy asked Spike, pulling at his powerful hands.

"Are you in such a hurry to die?" Spike demanded.  "Angel is immortal.  You're not."

"I'm the Slayer!" Buffy countered, her hazel eyes spitting anger.  "He needs me!"

"Your daughter needs you!"  Spike was furious with Buffy.  He shook her, screaming in her face, "Are you going to sacrifice your daughter just so that you can feel better about sending your demon hubby to Hell again?!"

Buffy blanched, but Spike didn't give her time to speak.  "Aurora is going to die here if we don't get her to a hospital real fast.  I will not have another Slayer's death on my hands!

Buffy looked at Aurora's slumped body.  Her face was near white and her lips were turning an unhealthy tinge of blue.  Blood stained the stone beneath her from wounds that weren't closing up.  

"Oh God," Buffy prayed-gasped.  "Aurora," she called, lightly shaking the girl awake again.  "You have to stay awake for me, baby.  Can you do that?  Just until we get to the hospital?"

"…tired…," Aurora mumbled.  Her tongue felt heavy and opening her eyes seemed like the hardest thing to do on the planet.  

"She's not going to make it to a hospital in this condition," Buffy said.  "What do I do, Spike?  Help me save my daughter.  Please!"

Spike's mind raced.  Under any other circumstances he would have suggested giving her blood, but if Aurora took his blood, it could turn very ugly very fast.  

Buffy's blood was also tainted with the super Warrior cocktail she shared with Angel earlier.  It would probably save Aurora and then some, but there was no telling what the blood would do to her.  So that idea was also out of the question.

The vampire watched the young Slayer's blood ooze out of her tiny body and had an idea.  He grabbed Buffy's cut palm roughly, opening the fast-healing wound.  Buffy yelped, but didn't pull her hand back when Spike held it over Aurora's wounds, letting the blood drip into and over the wounds.

As he hoped, Aurora's body accepted the blood and immediately the wounds started scabbing over.  "The wounds won't heal fast enough without her taking some of your blood, but…" Spike started.

"So give her my blood!" Buffy cried, thrusting her wrist at Spike.  

Spike swallowed hard to banish the sudden thirst for the elixir flowing through those delicate veins and said, "But after that swapping of bodily fluids you and Angel did, I don't think it's safe. Having her drink from you has to stay our very last emergency option.  We have to hurry and get her to a hospital."  

He lifted Aurora in his arms, worry sneaking across his immortally youthful features.  She weighs less than nothing, Spike thought.  "Keep your hand over the wound.  Let your blood mix with hers to keep the wound closed."

Buffy nodded.  Together, they left.


	17. Aurora Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

It was an hour since the trauma staff at the hospital had wheeled Aurora away.  Buffy paced up.  Spike paced down.  Whenever someone in surgical greens or a white lab coat passed, they halted, breaths held in expectation of bad news.

"Mrs Liam?"  

Buffy spun around to the male voice that called her name, hoping (fearing) to see the doctor.  In stead, there stood a well-dressed middle aged man with remarkable blue eyes.  He was accompanied another man who looked like he slept in the suit he was wearing and two uniformed officers.

"Mrs Liam?" he asked again, glancing quickly at Spike and frowning lightly before introducing himself.  "My name is Lindsey MacDonald.  I'm the District Attorney.  This is Detective Richmond."

Buffy shook the DA's offered hand quickly, frowning, "What do you want, Mr MacDonald?"

"Are you aware there's a warrant out for your daughter's arrest?"  Lindsey was all business outside, even though curiosity over the absence of Angel and the state of the two people in front of him (not to mention the wanted girl still being worked on by the doctors) was eating him alive.

"Her arrest?  Why?" Buffy demanded, straightening her back.  Her anger at this interloper drowned out the incessant worry for her daughter a little.

"She skipped bail and missed her parole hearing," the rumpled detective interrupted rudely.  

"Bloody hell!" Spike blustered, but shut up when he saw the dark fury on his companion's face.

Buffy returned her gaze to the two men before her and ground out between clenched teeth, "My daughter was kidnapped and tortured.  She's in there fighting for her life.  If you think I'm going to let you take her away, you are very much mistaken."

Richmond stepped up to the bristling mother and looked down on her from his intimidating 6 ft 5" frame.  "Look, lady," he started, thrilling at the prospect of reducing this tiny woman to tears.  "Your kid killed a guy.  She jumped bail.  She's going back to jail."

With each statement he poked his finger in Buffy's face, as if accusing her of some unforgivable sin.  Buffy bit harder and harder on her teeth to keep herself from ripping that damned finger right off and throwing it back in his face, but when he actually poked her in the chest, she lost it.  

She grabbed the insolent detective's finger and twisted it back, bending his wrist at a highly painful angle and his finger close to breaking, driving the big man to his knees.  

Buffy's face was so close to the detective's that he could only see her eyes.  She growled, "The only place my daughter's going is home with me.  Try to stop me and I will rip your throat out."  

Her eyes flashed golden before returning to its natural hazel.  She released the stunned detective and backed away, her hands raised to show the crowding officers her 'surrender'.

"Mrs Liam?"  All eyes turned to the doctor standing in the doorway of the waiting room.  "Could I have a moment?"

Buffy paled at the worry she was reading in the doctor's eyes.  "Is she…?" she tried to ask, her mouth suddenly very dry.

"It would be better if we spoke in private."  

Spike took Buffy's icy hand and squeezed it, leading her to follow the doctor out into the hallway.  When the unwanted guests also turned to follow, Spike growled menacingly, freezing them in their tracks.

"Okay, Doctor," Buffy said, trembling.  "Tell me.  Is she going to make it?"

"Your daughter had lost a lot of blood and her wounds were quite severe.  By the time you brought her in, her body had already gone into shock," the doctor explained, not quite meeting the worried mother and (he assumed) father's eyes.

Buffy interrupted.  "You're not answering me.  Is she going to make it?"

"It worries me that she's not responding to the transfusions like she should be, but at the moment she is stable.  The next 24 hours are critical, but if she makes it through the next day, she'll be fine."

"Can I see her?" 

The doctor nodded.  "I had her moved to ICU for observation.  I'll take you to her." 

Aurora looked so fragile lying in that hospital bed with tubes and wires hooked up to bags and bleeping machines.  Buffy sobbed, burying her face in Spike's shoulder.

"It's okay, Buffy.  She'll be okay," Spike soothed softly.

Buffy nodded, working hard to get herself under control.  She didn't want Aurora to see her so upset.  "Aurora?" Buffy whispered softly, bending over the bed and lightly kissing her daughter's cool forehead.  "Baby, can you hear me?"

Aurora's eyelids fluttered and opened.  "Mom?" she croaked softly, no strength in her voice at all.

"Yes, baby, I'm right here," Buffy answered, squeezing Aurora's hand to prove it.

Aurora looked past her mother, meeting her undead boyfriend's sky-blue eyes and she smiled.  He quickly took position on the other side of the bed and, lifting her hand, kissed the fingers softly.  "Princess," he said and kissed her fingers again.

"Where's Dad?" she asked, wincing at the effort to take a breath.  The memories of the last few hours were a little hazy, but why weren't her father also by her bedside?  Then she remembered.

"Your dad's away right now, but he'll be back soon," Buffy was saying when Aurora turned away, shaking her head in denial.

"Dad's dead.  I remember now.  You killed him."  Aurora looked at her mother, misery, anger and hatred clearly written in her near-black eyes.

Buffy recoiled inwardly at the loathing in her only child's eyes.  "Aurora, he's not dead.  I swear it!  He said he'll be back and your father is a man of his word.  He'll be back."

At that moment, Angel was ducking and dodging the snapping jaws of an enormous snake-monster.  Its breath reeked of decomposing flesh and Angel thought he saw a piece of leg stuck between the monster's back teeth.

Angel dodged again, landing with a hard thump on the soft ground of the swamp surrounding him.  His hand sank into the soggy earth when he tried to push up.  Angel's fingers brushed over something hard and round.  They closed around whatever it might be instinctively; the need for a weapon great.

Angel jumped back to his feet just in time to duck another biting attack by his slithering foe, bringing a piece of broken-off wood with him.  He eyed its denseness, tested the weight and brought it crashing down on the snake-monster's head in a matter of seconds.  

The club made a satisfying wet crunching sound when it made contact with the reptilian anatomy.  Angel roared and swung the club hard and fast, beating the monster into the muck.  "Do you know how much I hate snakes?" he growled, bashing his makeshift weapon into the creature's head over and over again.  "Your breath stinks!"  Blood flew everywhere, the flesh being quickly beaten into pulp.  "And I am not!  Your!!  DINNER!!!"  A loud cracking sound echoed over the instantly silent marsh as Angel caved the hungry beast's head in, killing it dead.

Angel stepped back, panting.  Welcome to hell, he thought sourly and started walking, cleaning blood and grime off his coat.  

The moons above him were only quarter full and the constellations were completely alien to the vampire who had navigated his many centuries of life by the stars.  Angel had no idea where he was or where he was going.  He simply followed the eerie pull in his blood.  

On some metaphysical level, he and Acathla were connected through the blood that flowed through his veins.  The same blood that nearly got my daughter killed, he brooded bitterly, the anger at his sire still smoldering hot in his gut.  

He already had so many innocents' blood on his hands; it would never matter how much he washed them.  The blood would never wash away.  Now he could add his own child's blood to the list of regrets.  

Buffy hated it when he got like this.  She would say that the Powers forgave him and that should be enough for him, but she could never understand.  Not until she had maimed, tortured and killed the thousands he had.  

Angel's heart shrunk painfully at the thought of his beautiful wife and daughter.  He missed them desperately and this distance between them felt like a sword through his soul.  Angel closed his eyes, "Let them be okay," he prayed silently and walked on.

In another reality, Buffy woke up from a dream; Angel's eyes still in front of her, his words of love and longing in her ears.  'We're okay, my love,' her heart answered.  'Hurry home.'


	18. Aurora Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

The tired Slayer felt eyes on her and found Aurora awake, looking at her intently.  "I had a dream about Dad.  He was so far away, but I heard him.  He said he loves us and misses us.  He's really alive, isn't he, Mom?"

Buffy nodded, hugging her child while silent tears slipped from her eyes.  "Your dad will come back to us.  Nothing can stop him."

"Hey, am I going nuts or did Peaches just talk to me?  This chip in my head can't get a radio signal worth shit, but from other dimensions the reception is clear as a bell.  Go figure."  Spike shoved a cup of sludge in Buffy's hand.  "Here's some coffee."

Buffy sat down, grimacing at the foul taste of what the hospital cafeteria classified as coffee.  "God, that's bad!" she said, shuddering.  "I swear the coffee is the reason why half the people in this place are patients.  How can you enjoy it?"

"Simple," Spike answered, folding his fingers around Aurora's warm hand.  "It's not coffee."

"Spike, the bloodbank is not part of the cafeteria!" Buffy scolded.  The vampire just shrugged and downed the last of the O positive in his cup, smirking at the annoyed Slayer.

Aurora couldn't help but laugh.  

After she had made it through the dreaded 24 hours, the doctor insisted on keeping her in the hospital for further observation for another 2 days.  Just to be sure, he had said.  Aurora had argued that she really didn't need to stay any longer, but since the choice wasn't hers to make, she had to endure being waited on hand and foot by her Slayer mother and vampire boyfriend for a few more days.

In that time she had watched with great amusement at how these two people had been dancing around one another, trading jabs for barbs and smirks.  She would ask questions about their history and listen with great relish at the versions of the truth they would tell.  'And of course argue about,' she grinned.

"What you grinnin' at, Slayer?" Spike asked Aurora, warming to the love he read in her eyes.

"You two.  You must have been great friends," Aurora answered, laughter bubbling up in her when both Spike and Buffy started blustering denials.  "Face it," she said.  "You like each other.  I can't wait to sit back and watch Thanksgiving holiday when all of us, Dad included, will be together.  Now that should be very entertaining."

Spike snorted, "Yeah, the Buff's family holidays always were a barrel of laughs.  Say, don't you have a birthday coming up soon?"

"Oh, shut up, Spike," Buffy grumbled, glowering.  Aurora laughed again, even though she had no clue what this particular code meant.

"Someone's sure in a good mood today."  Aurora and her guests looked at the smiling face of the young Dr Claudius.

Aurora smiled.  "Hi Doc!" she said brightly.  "Whatcha got for me today?  More tests?  I'm getting good at tests."

"Actually I have your walking papers," the doctor said, holding up his clipboard.  "The nurses begged me to release you.  They said they just couldn't stand another day's stress having to cope with you."  He grinned at Aurora, laughing out loud when the pretty young girl poked her tongue out at him.

Still choking back the last of his laughter, the doctor said to Buffy, "I just need you for a moment to sign some papers, Mrs Liam.  Then you'll be free to take your daughter home."  Buffy nodded and followed the doctor out to the closest nurses' station.

"Her recovery is quite remarkable," Dr Claudius commented as he pointed to where Buffy had to sign.  "I don't think I've ever seen a complete turn-around like Aurora's."

Buffy kept her eyes pinned to the papers in front of her and said non-committally, "She must get it from her father.  He was always a fast healer."

"Maybe," the doctor murmured.  "Has she told you more about where and now she got those strange wounds?"

Buffy handed back the curious doctor's pen, her name scrawled at the bottom of all the official documents.  "Can I take my daughter home now?" she asked, ignoring the question hanging between them.

Dr Claudius sighed, "Yes, you may.  The DA's office faxed through Aurora's papers authorizing us to remand her to your custody.  I expect to see Aurora each morning for the next 2 or 3 days.  The nurse will have the schedule for you, along with Aurora's medication prescription."

He started walking away when Buffy spoke, "Doctor, thank you.  Thank you for saving my little girl's life."

He turned around briefly and smiled at Buffy, "Take care, Mrs Liam."  His footsteps echoed the sterilized hallways of the hospital and he wondered if he would ever find out the mystery behind this fascinating girl and her strange family.

"Come on, kiddo," Buffy said brightly, walking back into Aurora's hospital room.  She was already dressed and Spike was helping her dump all her stuff in a carry bag.  The elder Slayer smiled and said, "Let's get out of here."

****************

"Let's get out of here!" the terrified man screamed, blindly starting to run in any direction his legs would carry him.  He was dirty and smelled of decay.  His clothes were threadbare to say the least and the way his eyes and cheeks sank into his face revealed his malnutrition to all that was paying attention.

The only one around to pay any attention to the lost, terrified man was Angel, and at that moment his attention was focussed intently on the legions of soldiers marching down on his less than ideal hiding place.

"Stay put and shut up," Angel growled low, pulling the running back to the ground.  "You run and they will find us both and kill us."

Panic made the man's eyes roll around in his head.  "But if we stay here and they find us, we're trapped," he shrieked, struggling against the powerful hand that barred his flight.  "They'll kill us anyway!"

"They won't find us," Angel said, his eyes still tracking the soldiers' passage.  "As long as you shut up and stop struggling!"

The random direction Angel had chosen nearly 2 weeks ago had led him to an encampment inhabited by humans.  Women were skittish and wouldn't look him in the eye, mostly hiding in their doorways or tent flaps where no doors were available.  Men were wary, but openly hostile to the newcomer, making their distrust of the stranger in their midst clear with each glance and gesture.

They refused to talk to Angel.  They remained quiet in his presence, not uttering a word.  Angel started to wonder if these poor out-of-place souls could even speak or if their tongues had been removed by whatever evil force had transported them to this world and had forced them into hiding and squalor.  

"I won't hurt you," Angel had said, trying to sound as harmless as he could.  "I just want to know where I am.  Where is this place?

The locals shied away from him.  When Angel took a tiny step towards them, the women raced into their homes and men scrambled for any weapons they could find.  Angel felt his forehead, making sure he wasn't actually the one scaring them with an inhuman vampire face.  The skin beneath his fingers was smooth and his teeth were blunt under his tongue's tip.

These people had just been terrorized into fearing everything, Angel realized.

That was when the screaming started.  A shriek pierced the night sky, spurring the flight-ready strangers into action, but their scattering halted when a bellowing howl followed a bloodied and torn girl running out of the dark woods.

"HELP ME!" she begged her brethren, tears cutting paths through the grime on her face.  She looked back at the creature pursuing her.  

Behind her, slicing through the air, was a great flying monster that looked like it could be the snake-monster's brother, but with wings.  'And claws,' Angel reminded himself.  'Don't forget the claws.'

The beast opened up its fang-filled maw and howled again, diving at its prey.  Fate had been on the girl's side.  She stumbled, crashing to the ground and out of the way of the monster's mouth in the nick of time.  

As the giant flying lizard swooped around for another pass, the girl clawed her way back to her feet, already running before she was even upright.  

The men were pelting stones and wooden spears at the monster, but it served no purpose other than to further piss the already aggravated creature off.  The men, bravely facing the invading monster, were too weak to fight something that powerful and determined.

The monster had locked his sights on the annoying humans and launched itself at them.  Angel dived in, tackling a young man out of the way and saving him from becoming the beast's appetizer.  

Angel took the spear the boy had clutched in his hand and charged the monster with a murderous roar.  The beast took up the challenged and charged.

For the astonished mortals this looked like a chicken race between David and Goliath.  The flying snake swooped and swerved, making a moving target of itself.  Angel ran straight at it, tracking its every move and twitch with the deadly eye of a master predator.

Angel gauged the distance between him and the monster.  Now or never, he knew.  He leapt high in the air.  The monster saw what the little man's plan was and tried to duck away from him, but its immense body wouldn't allow such nimble action.

Angel landed on the thing's back.  With a mighty thrust he sunk his hand into the bucking creature's flesh and held on.  The vampire's powerful legs clamped tightly against either sides of its neck.  

The monster shrieked in frustration, bucking and swerving wildly to try and shake the two-legged creature off his back, but Angel held on.  He raised the spear high over his head and with one powerful lunge stabbed the weapon into the monster's head.

The shriek of frustration became one of intense agony as the vampire pushed the spear through the creature's flesh and bone into its brain.  Its flight became erratic, spinning… faltering… finally halting.  The monster fell from the sky, crashing into the ground and ripping up the earth as it skidded to a dead stop.

The silence was palpable until Angel got up from where he landed.  Then roaring cheers for the terrorized humans' new hero sounded out and Angel found himself being carried back to the camp; no longer a stranger or enemy, but a savior.


	19. Aurora Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

"Bring me the champion that defeated the powerful Sky Stealer!"  That was Acathla's command to his Captain of the Guard.  

The news spread far and wide in the last 2 weeks since Angel had slain the flying monster that has been terrifying the inhabitants of Acathla's strange and dangerous world.  

Upon hearing the news that Acathla's favourite toy of destruction was dead, the demon was first outraged and then intrigued.  What powerful creature could possibly defeat the mighty Sky Stealer?

Acathla's armies started tearing up villages and settlements left and right trying to track down the person everybody was whispering about.  

The very same armies that were passing Angel and his terrified companion as they hid in the rocks.

Angel knew that they were looking for him.  He didn't need to hear the buzzing around the encampment about the reward for any news about him to know that Acathla wants to find him.  He also knew that if he didn't leave soon, the people he's been trying to protect will be hurt, and probably killed, trying to protect him.  

Angel was deep in thought when his trembling companion nudged him, whispering, "Angel?  We should go before they come back."

Angel pulled his mind back to the present, looked around quickly, seeing that the company of soldiers have passed their hiding place without noticing them and have disappeared over the rise just south of them.  He nodded quickly and together they disappeared around the rocks and to the east.

****************

"I have to leave."  Angel sat with a determined look setting his brow as the firelight danced in his eyes.

"If you leave the soldiers will find you.  It is dangerous to kill our Lord Acathla's beasts without his permission.  You could be killed."

The old man, eldest of his clan, and leader of the encampment, spoke softly and slowly.  "We can keep you safe.  Hide you from the soldiers."

"Thank you, Endress, but if I don't leave your people will be in even greater danger.  I don't want to see you hurt trying to protect me."  The concern resonated in Angel's voice.  

"I won't be killed.  I want to be found by the soldiers.  My destiny lies with Acathla, and what better way to meet him than to be invited into his chambers.  You have been kind with me, taking me in and for that I will always be grateful.  Now let me do what I have to do for your safety.  Please."


End file.
